


Angel's Grace Loosed and Black Starfire Bound

by bladespark



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angel Wings, At least when Aziraphale tells him he should, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), BDSM, Cosmic powers, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Demon Summoning, Dominant Aziraphale (Good Omens), Grey wings are half way between demon and angel, M/M, Master/Pet, Oral Sex, Painplay, Praise Kink, Spanking, Submissive Crowley (Good Omens), Vaginal Sex, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-08-23 09:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladespark/pseuds/bladespark
Summary: Crowley has had six thousand years to construct fantasies about Aziraphale, so it's perhaps unsurprising that some of those fantasies got a little...wild.  Now, with the two finally together, said wild fantasies are in danger of escaping from Crowley's mind and getting blurted out at some inopportune moment, which would be the worst thing ever.  After all, there's no way the sweet and innocent Aziraphale would be into anything so depraved and kinky... (We all know that actually he is, right? :D)Exploring domination together is about to open a giant can of worms, though, for in the process of doing so, Crowley gives Aziraphale his true name, and thus sets something in motion that will end with him discovering an immense power.  And while Heaven isn't watching, Hell might still be, and they aren't about to let somebody like Crowley out of their grasp.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! This was going to be a short and simple kink fic, but sometimes stories get minds of their own.
> 
> It is 99% finished (I'm just wibbling about with the final sex scene) and I'll be posting a chapter at least once a week until it's all up.
> 
> I have no idea how much readership there is for "It's about BDSM but also demon binding and so about cosmic powers and magic and smiting and shit" stories. Possibly not much. But I wrote the thing, so I figured I might as well share it! :3 
> 
> This work is technically a sequel to [While the Nightingale Sang Unheard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361611/chapters/46064548), but all you need to know from that is that the pair got together after Armageddon't, which hardly needs saying in this fandom, does it? Oh, and there's a little bit from that story about angelic orgasms causing lightning, and demonic ones tending to set the bedsheets on fire, but that's just a minor detail. So read the first if you like, but feel free to skip it too.

Crowley whisked briskly until every bit of the cocoa powder had dissolved into the steaming milk, then halted lest it get too cold from over-whisking. Carefully he poured the result from the pan into a sky blue mug with angel’s wings printed on it—he’d been unable to resist buying that one, though they didn’t remotely need more mugs—and smiled down in pure satisfaction at the hot chocolate, made exactly how Aziraphale liked it. Then he picked it up and slipped from the kitchen to where the angel was sitting at his desk, reading. Crowley carefully set the mug onto the desk, so unobtrusively that Aziraphale didn’t even look up from his book.

Although admittedly with some books Crowley could have walked in playing the trombone and dumped the cup over Aziraphale’s head and he would only have noticed if some of it splashed on the pages.

Crowley leaned against a bookshelf and watched Aziraphale intently as he continued to read. If the demon merely abandoned the cup here, it might grow cold undrunk. So though he would rather have slipped the cocoa there invisibly and vanished without Aziraphale ever noticing he’d been there, he waited. If Aziraphale was so engrossed he didn’t glance up when turning the page…

But he did, taking that half-second pause he always did with any but the most enthralling of books. A smile spread across his face and the brief glance turned into a long, appreciative look. He picked up the cup, then turned, spotting Crowley. “Thank you, Crowley, my love.”

“No trouble,” said Crowley, flashing a swift smile and levering himself fully upright. “Enjoy the cocoa and enjoy your book.”

“I will!” called Aziraphale after him as he returned to the kitchenette. He leaned back against the wall there, tipping his head back with a contented sigh. Doing these little favors for Aziraphale was always great. He liked pleasing his angel. He liked, well…serving him.

That word, though, sent his mind running down a well-worn track that had always been a _little_ bit frustrating, and was now starting to become very much more so.

It had been very, very easy to allow himself some extremely wild fantasies about just what he might do for Aziraphale, and just what Aziraphale might do to him, when they’d been obviously separated by the impossible divide of angels and demons, beings on opposite sides of infinity. It had even been easy to start acting on those fantasies in little ways, finding opportunities to serve and please Aziraphale, though he had kept up a pretense of not really wanting to, of needing to be talked into it. _No, Brer Angel, don’t throw me into that briar patch…_ Now, though, they were on nobody’s side but their own, and in the months since the rather memorable night when they’d finally managed to admit how much they loved each other, Crowley had been checking _some_ things off of his list of fantasies centered around Aziraphale.

The thing was, though, that in six thousand years of sexual repression, one could come up with a lot of fantasies, and the simple ones—the easy ones to ask for—had gotten their ticky-boxes well and truly ticked some time past, and rather repeatedly since, too.

Crowley wasn’t unhappy with that; he could live with having nothing at all more than he had now—loving sex nearly every night and little acts of service nearly every day—for eternity.

But.

That traitorous little “but”.

But the _other_ fantasies kept bubbling up in the back of his mind at the worst possible times. He found strange requests that he knew would shock the somewhat sheltered angel hovering on the tip of his tongue far too often. His wild ideas wanted out, and he had a feeling that if he didn’t find a safe way to bring the subject of at least some of them up, he’d end up blurting one out in mid-coitus, or while Aziraphale was telling off a particularly rude customer—stars above, the angel had no idea how hot he was on the rare occasions when he allowed himself to be angry—or at some other inopportune moment.

Crowley needed to mention at least the vague shape of them, so that Aziraphale could tell him he wasn’t interested—because there was no way his angel was going to be interested—and lay them to rest. Otherwise he might end up embarrassing himself dreadfully.

Crowley tipped his head back against the bookshelf and sighed deeply. He knew he had to bring it up somehow, he just had no idea whatsoever how.

****

Aziraphale sat and sipped his cocoa with a very peculiar mix of happiness and worry circling through his mind. The cocoa was absolutely perfect, as it always was when Crowley made it. Aziraphale himself didn’t always get it quite right—he was particularly prone to wandering off to read just a page or two while the milk started to heat, and returning to find it well and truly scorched—but the demon never failed to attend to every detail.

That was very much the way things went, when Crowley did his little favors. Crowley was better at them than Aziraphale was, without question. In everything from getting a paintball stain out of the angel’s best jacket to stopping time on the verge of Armageddon, Crowley had proved that he was not just more skilled, but also very much more powerful than Aziraphale.

Even that time in nineteen forty-one, when Aziraphale had needed to save them both because they’d been on holy ground, and demons had no power there, even then Crowley had somehow managed to work a small miracle, something few demons could have managed while standing in a church. One of the Lords of Hell, perhaps, but not an ordinary demon.

And then there was the matter of the stars. Crowley had mentioned making some. He didn’t talk about his angelic past much, it was obviously still a very deep sore spot with him, but what he’d let slip made it clear that he’d been a major part of the creation team. Aziraphale himself had only assisted others in a few minor details here on earth. He’d been on a few committees, including the much-too-large monotreme committee, but that was all. He certainly hadn’t made entire stars all by himself! Whoever Crowley had been, back before he fell, he’d been somebody higher up the heavenly hierarchy than a mere Principality like Aziraphale.

Crowley was so much better at miracles, and at so many other little tasks, that Aziraphale had come to lean on him far too much for those things. He hadn’t really noticed it happening at first, it had been so natural. But now that they were seeing each other every single day it was rapidly becoming quite obvious. He could barely remember the last time he’d made a cup of cocoa himself, and that was just the beginning of it.

That was where the worry came in. Crowley was constantly doing those little bits and bobs for Aziraphale, but Aziraphale wasn’t doing anything at all for Crowley in return.

It seemed as if allowing that pattern to continue would be a bad idea. Eventually Crowley would get tired of everything being so one-sided, of Aziraphale taking such advantage of him, and he’d get upset, and feel neglected, and maybe even break things off. The very thought made Aziraphale quail in something entirely like terror.

Aziraphale needed to find some favor or other, some act of service, even a small one, that he could do for Crowley. He didn’t know what, but he knew he needed to do it, and soon, or everything would be ruined forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things spill out, in more ways than one.

Crowley was whistling as he walked into his apartment. He had a pretty good lead on an interesting book, not something he would normally spend any time on, but he’d felt like getting his angel a present. It wasn’t Christmas, and they didn’t have birthdays, but he didn’t need a reason to do such a thing, did he?

The whistle trailed off as he entered his office and saw that his desk was entirely covered with plants.

Not his plants, but strangers, plants he didn’t know, who wouldn’t yet fear him. New plants.

Bending over them, mister in hand, was Aziraphale, who straightened with a little start. “Oh! You’re here early. It was rather meant to be a surprise.”

Crowley surveyed the sea of green completely covering his desk. There was even one perched on top of the answering machine; a little succulent in a brightly colored pot. “It’s definitely surprising,” was the only answer he could come up with. What was Aziraphale doing?

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, his brows drawn together. “You don’t sound pleased. You like plants. I know you like plants.”

“I do like plants. But why…?” Crowley couldn’t quite find the rest of the question, but it hung in the air between them all the same.

Aziraphale flushed. “Well…”

Crowley lifted his eyebrows, insisting on an answer now. “Hmm?”

“I wanted to do something nice for you. You do so many nice things for me.”

Crowley blinked, feeling a strange mix of feelings. A wash of warmth at how Aziraphale cared. A rush of love. A tangle of dismay at the worry he could just hear in the angel’s voice. And a deep discomfort at the thought that Aziraphale felt he needed to return favors tit for tat. That wasn’t right at all. “Oh, angel,” Crowley said, not knowing what else to say.

“I know I haven’t been doing a very good job of being good to you,” said Aziraphale, almost shamefully, and Crowley felt it stab him through the heart. He went over to the angel, taking the mister out of his hand and setting it aside, then twining their fingers together. 

“Angel. Please. You _have_ been doing the best possible job of being good to me.” Aziraphale’s brows furrowed again, and Crowley gave in to the urge to lean in and kiss just between them. “You don’t need to give me plants to prove you love me, my angel. I know that already.”

“Yes but…” Aziraphale flapped his free hand in consternation. “But you do all sorts of things for me, and I almost never do anything for you. It’s not fair. It’s not how things should be. I should be taking care of you, the way you take care of me. We both love each other. Shouldn’t it be even? Shouldn’t we both do favors for each other?”

“No!” said Crowley, and he felt his cheeks flushing as he realized how forcefully that had come out. He let go of Aziraphale’s hand and pulled his shades off, wanting to look directly into the angel’s eyes. “No,” he said, more softly, to Aziraphale’s sweet, baffled face. “We do both love each other. But I serve you, and you accept the service and maybe say something nice to me. That’s the tit for tat, that’s the way it should be.”

“I don’t understand.” Aziraphale’s voice was almost plaintive, and Crowley couldn’t help but smile, though his heart was going a million miles an hour.

“Look, the thing with love is that…well…” Crowley paused, hunting for words. “It’s not about fairness, right? It’s about what feels right. About the ways you fit together.” Aziraphale raised both eyebrows, the corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement, and Crowley scowed and said, “Not like that!” Then he added, “Well, like that too. But it’s about what loving somebody makes you feel like doing, okay? If you buy me plants because you think you’re obligated to buy me plants, how is that love? Love isn’t obligation. That’s not right. You love me when you say my name, you know, _that_ way. You love me when you give me those looks. You love me when you have that perfect little smile on the first taste of the cocoa I made you. You love me lots of ways, but this,” he swept his hand over the sea of green on his desk, “isn’t it. And I love you when I do those little favors, because that’s what feels right, that’s what love makes me want to do, okay? I want to serve you.”

Aziraphale looked at him, his mouth open in an adorable “O” of surprise. His eyes flicked as he processed what Crowley had said. Finally he said, “Oh, Crowley. I see what you mean about love. But…” He hesitated, then said, “Serve? Really? I’m not the Almighty. I’m not a king or a lord. You’re not a servant. That doesn’t seem right either. It doesn’t seem fair. I can’t just lounge around with you feeding me grapes or something.”

With a suddenly vivid image of Aziraphale in one of his old Roman or perhaps Greek outfits, lounging on a couch, and Crowley kneeling naked beside him feeding him grapes one at a time, Crowley cleared his throat. “Well, why not, if we both enjoy it?”

“But… But it’s not _fair._” 

The plaintiveness was still there, and Crowley almost laughed, though it would have come out as a nervous sort of laugh, no doubt. He was going to end up spilling it all out, he just knew it, and then everything would be terrible. Still, he managed to say, “Oh my angel. Yes it is. You get what you want, perfect cocoa. Or peeled grapes. Or whatever. I get what I want, serving you.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Aziraphale softly.

Crowley sighed. “No. I know it’s not like that for you. But you have to understand… You have to understand… I’m not…like you.”

“Because you’re a demon?”

“No! Because… Because…” Crowley hesitated, suddenly wanting to come up with some lie, some excuse, however lame, for all this, something that was anything other than the truth. How could he say that he wanted to kneel down and kiss Aziraphale’s feet? How could he say that when he called Aziraphale’s name during sex he genuinely might as well be crying out “God”? How could he say any of that? He couldn’t. He couldn’t. It would all go wrong and he’d lose his angel, he just knew it.

“Because?”

“Because I want to serve you!” said Crowley, frustrated, terrified, nearly in tears.

“You keep _saying_ that and I still don’t understand! Can you actually _explain_ yourself here?” said Aziraphale, sharply, showing one of those rare flashes of stern anger. 

It shuddered through Crowley like lightning, stirring every kind of desire in him, and he couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t resist. He threw himself to his knees in front of Aziraphale and blurted out, “I want to be the servant to your lord. I want to be the subject to your king. I want to be the worshiper to your deity. I want to be the slave to your master! I want to serve you, don’t you _see!?_”

****

Aziraphale stared in stunned shock at the demon kneeling at his feet. Crowley looked up at him for one long moment, his amber serpent’s eyes shimmering with unshed tears, then bowed his head, looking down at Aziraphale’s wingtip loafers.

Part of Aziraphale’s brain was fumbling around for an explanation, trying to parse what Crowley had just said. He couldn’t possibly mean all that, could he? Part of his brain, though, was comparing this particular image of the demon kneeling there, head bowed, to certain other images that had floated through his head in the past—there wasn’t a ritual circle here, he noted—and another part of his brain had more or less melted down entirely.

“Crowley…” He groped for a coherent thought, for something to say. Finally he said, “Do you really mean that, Crowley? Do you really mean that you want to…to…to somehow submit to me?”

“Yes.” One word, trembling, edged with tears. Azirphale struggled again for a response. He knew this wasn’t a light thing, to be accepted lightly. But in the silence that resulted, Crowley said, softly, almost brokenly, “I know that’s not what you want—”

“You _don’t_ know that,” said Aziraphale, swiftly, instantly, and Crowley lifted his head and blinked at him with wide, startled eyes.

“I… What?”

“You don’t know that. You fear that. But you don’t know it. You _can’t_ know it, because it isn’t true.”

Those wide eyes blinked repeatedly, and Aziraphle found himself smiling at the demon’s shock. “I do want it. I don’t know…” He frowned faintly. “I don’t know the exact shape of what you want, but I know… I know I’ve imagined you at my feet like this before.”

Crowley sucked in a sharp gasp. “You have?”

Aziraphale nodded. “You know that demons can be bound, don’t you?”

Crowley braced his hands on his knees, his body suddenly swaying. “Y-yes.” His voice shook again, but not with tears.

“There are a few little bits of literature on the subject,” Aziraphale knew he was rambling, but he couldn’t help it. His mind was trying to go off in ten different directions at once, and lecturing was at least a familiar form to him, even if this subject was not. “Most of it fiction, of course, but some of it a little more…real. I’ve read all of those that exist, I think. As one does when one collects rare books about things like prophecy and magic and other such doings. And every time I read about demon binding…” Aziraphale swallowed hard, looking down at Crowley, who was looking up at him incredulously, “Every time I read such a thing, some little bit at the back of my head couldn’t help but imagine you in the place of whatever demon was being bound. And…” He swallowed again. “And me in the place of whatever mortal was binding him. Absurd, of course,” he went on, as Crowley gaped at him, “Angels do not bind demons. We smite or banish or cast them out, but we don’t bind them for our use. It would be wildly inappropriate, even if we had some need of a demon’s power. But…”

“But?” whispered Crowley, his expression turning from shock to something like hope.

“But I don’t really concern myself with what would or would not be appropriate for an angel anymore,” Aziraphale said, smiling gently.

Crowley didn’t reply with words, but he let out a long sigh, his body relaxing, nearly slumping, and he bowed his head again.

“I suppose it would be a little silly, still, an angel binding a demon. It’s not done. But I could rather make you do _something_ or other about those odd little thoughts I kept having whenever I read some new demonology book, I suppose.”

“You could,” murmured Crowley, a shiver going through him. His voice was heavy with what Aziraphale recognized as desire, and he found his mind suddenly recategorizing a number of things about their recent sex life. The way Crowley loved going down on him. The way he always wanted to be the bottom. The way he tended to jump in and make Aziraphale come first, even when Aziraphale had started things off intending to have it be the other way around. No wonder. No wonder.

“Oh Crowley. My love. My demon. I do believe I shall. I’m sure we can work out _something_. Although…” Aziraphale hesitated and coughed. “I couldn’t possibly _actually_ bind you. I mean just to begin with I’d need to know, you know, your, er, old name.” He shied away from the phrase “real name.” Crowley _was_ his real name as far as Aziraphale was concerned. “I know that’s asking for far too much.”

Crowley glanced up at him for just an instant, a quick flash of amber-gold eyes, before looking down again. Aziraphale regarded his view of the top of Crowley’s head, covered in untidy hair like an explosion of dark flame, and was trying to think of what to do next, when he heard the faintest possible whisper.

“-ael,”

He blinked down at Crowley, stunned all over again. Surely Crowley couldn’t have whispered his true name? Demons guarded their true names with incredible jealousy, and Aziraphale knew how much the memories of before his Fall still hurt Crowley. The demon had once said that he didn’t even like to _think_ the name he’d once worn. He’d certainly never say it! “W-what?”

“Raphael.” His voice was still hardly above a whisper, and it was rough and edged with tears, but it was clear all the same. “My name was Raphael.”

Aziraphale forgot to breathe for a while.

_Raphael._

He _knew_ that name. Of course he knew that name, he was named after it, for Something’s sake! Azi-raphale. The angel had never never met his namesake, but he was famous, as were all seven of the highest of the Seraphim. Even humans had heard of him. Raphael was one of the top of the top, one of the Greats of Creation. He couldn’t possibly have fallen!

Although it was true that he hadn’t done anything of note since then. He wasn’t even mentioned in most versions of the Bible. Aziraphale hadn’t spent much time around the Heavenly Councils himself, but Raphael hadn’t been there any of the times he had shown up, just the other Big Names: Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Barachiel, and so on. So perhaps the one who had been their peer had in fact fallen, and now knelt at his feet. Surely Crowley wouldn’t lie about something like that?

But surely the _fucking Archangel Raphael_ couldn’t be kneeling at _Aziraphale’s_ feet. No. Surely if he ever met his namesake it would be the other way around? This was impossible. Aziraphale felt his head spinning, his heart pounding, remembered to draw in a breath and suddenly his breath was coming far too fast, in short, almost panicked gasps. Crowley wouldn’t lie to him. Not about this. It explained so much, too! Creating stars. How he’d been able to stop time on the eve of Armageddon. Working a demonic miracle on consecrated ground. All of it. And now he wanted to put himself in Aziraphale’s power. Now he was supposed to bind the _fucking Archagel Raphael!_

He realized he’d been standing there, staring at the top of Crowley’s head in silence for far too long. Crowley was holding still, far stiller than Aziraphale had ever seen him, waiting. He had to say something. But what?

“Angel?” Crowley’s voice was soft, vulnerable, but not afraid. It pierced Aziraphale through the heart, for what seemed like the thousandth time.

“Crowley. R-raphael. _Thank you._” Aziraphale tried to put every bit of sincerity he could into those two words. “Thank you for trusting me with, well, all this. I just… This…is a lot. I need a moment to think.”

“I understand.” The voice still quiet, Crowley still unmoving, head bent. Aziraphale wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Crowley hold still for this long. “If it’s too much for you, it’s not…something I need. It’s a fantasy, that’s all. I need _you_. I don’t need any this if you don’t want it.”

Crowley’s voice was familiar, still himself, still the same voice Aziraphale had been hearing since the dawn of time, even if the tone was softer than he was accustomed to, and Aziraphale knew suddenly that he _did_ want this, all of it, even the binding. It wasn’t the “fucking Archangel Raphael” at his feet, it was _Crowley_, the demon he’d known and loved for six thousand years. What counted for fantasies had always been rather vague and unfocused for him, he wasn’t particularly familiar with the specifics of these things, though he had started to get more so over the last few months. He at least knew what men actually did during sex now! But inasmuch as he had fantasies, they’d all been centered on Crowley, and they had quite definitely occasionally included _this_, the demon’s utter submission and subjection to him. He’d dismissed that as obviously ridiculous, obviously aberrant, and also obviously not something Crowley would ever want. Yet it seemed like it was none of the above. So even if he was a little fuzzy on what might come after, he knew he wanted this.

He put his hand on the top of Crowley’s head, and felt the demon shudder under the touch. “Crowley, my love, my beloved. I do want it. Or at least I want to try it.” He considered. “An actual, literal binding might be a bit, er, overkill for the moment. But we could, ah, pretend? My reading has rather suggested that such pretense is a common thing in sexual relations. There’s a fair bit in the Kama Sutra about that, and there are certain novels from the nineteenth century…”

“Ridiculous angel.” Crowley leaned his head against Aziraphale’s leg, and he was suddenly almost laughing. “You _would_ repeatedly bring books into even this.”

Aziraphale patted Crowley’s head again with a chuckle of his own. “I do rather lack other experience with this sort of thing, remember. Which is why I think a pretense is a good way to begin. I… I am touched that you trust me so, Crowley, my dearest. But a binding is a dreadfully serious thing, and not easily undone! I’ve rather found that fantasy and reality don’t always quite align, though. I mean, in sexual matters, thus far, well…”

Crowley did laugh now, softly. “No kidding. Nobody fantasizes about the awkward bits, and the parts that pinch weirdly or make you cramp or taste funny. But they’re there when you do it for real. Speaking of which, there’s no carpet in here and my knees are killing me.”

“Oh, Crowley. Come on, then.” Aziraphale held his hand out as Crowley finally looked up at him again. He was smiling, though there was still the shine of past tears unshed in his eyes. He took Aziraphale’s hand and let the angel pull him to his feet.

“So now what?” said Aziraphale, letting Crowley’s hand go for the moment.

Crowley looked at him for a moment in silence, then the corner of his mouth quirked upward and he said, “Now I think that we get back there,” he jerked his thumb towards the bedroom, “and you order me to do whatever pleases you, my angel.”

Aziraphale licked his lips. “That sounds… Yes. Let’s do that.” He considered Crowley, and a rather impish smile crossed his face. “In there. _Now._” He put a bit of a bite on that last word, and Crowley looked completely pole-axed.

“Yes, angel,” he breathed, and nearly sprinted into the bedroom.

Smiling, and feeling a shockingly wicked little thread of pleasure running through him, Aziraphale followed more sedately. His mind was already filling with ideas about terrible, wonderful, delightful things he could do to his demon, mostly inspired from fiction, admittedly, but delightful all the same.

His demon.

That phrase felt different now than it had only hours ago. He’d been trying to buy plants as a kind of talisman to keep his demon, hoping somehow that he could hold Crowley to his side, and yet now it seemed that he not only held Crowley, but _owned_ him. It was a strange thought, and even an intimidating one, especially considering that Raphael—no, he would not think about that, this was _Crowley_, put that aside!—an intimidating thought, but not an unpleasant one.

In the bedroom he found Crowley hovering somewhat hesitantly beside the bed, as if not sure what to do next. Deciding to solve that problem for him, Aziraphale deployed the first of his notions, making his voice as firm and hard as he could manage. “Well, my demon, I think the first thing you need to do is strip. And no miracles!” he added as Crowley raised his hand, about to snap. “You’re doing everything the old-fashioned way tonight. I’ll take care of any miracles that we need,” Aziraphale was thinking of Crowley’s tendency to set the bed on fire when he got very excited as he said that, “but you’re not permitted any of that tonight.”

Crowley swallowed, but nodded. “Yes, my angel.”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley thoughtfully for a moment and Crowley, apparently attuned enough to his moods to sense that he wasn’t quite done, waited, once again holding bizarrely still for the usually-restless demon. Meanwhile another notion had come to Aziraphale. On the one hand he _adored_ hearing “my angel” from Crowley’s lips. On the other, there were certain…conventions to the sort of thing they were attempting, and he rather liked the idea of trying on something from literature. So after a long moment, he said, “You may still call me angel, my demon, but when I give you an order, I expect ‘yes master’ in response.”

Crowley sucked in a sharp breath, then immediately nodded. “Yes, master.”

“Good boy,” said Crowley, without even thinking about it, and was astonished by the glowing smile that instantly blossomed on Crowley’s face. “Now I believe you have an order to carry out?”

Crowley ducked his head. “Yes, master.” He shed his clothes almost as quickly as he could have miracled them off, leaving them in a heap on the floor and standing nude in less than a minute.

“Very good,” said Aziraphale with an approving nod, and saw Crowley flush with pleasure in response. “Now I believe I need to be undressed as well.” He spread his arms out in invitation.

“Yes, master.” Crowley stepped close and slid his hands under Aziraphale’s coat, slipping it off of him and taking a moment to fold it neatly and lay it over the arm of a chair. He undid the bowtie next, and Aziraphale tipped his head up, but did nothing else to help. Crowley moved with purpose, but not with speed, he seemed to be enjoying his task and in no hurry to reach the end of it, though Aziraphale could already see, when he glanced down, that Crowley was very much aroused, his erection more than a little obvious given his unclad state.

Still, he was meticulous as he continued to undress Aziraphale, next removing his pocket watch and chain, and setting them with everything else. He undid Aziraphale’s waistcoat one button at a time, and the shirt beneath it the same, lingering even more as he finally revealed bare skin beneath. Aziraphale sighed softly as Crowley’s fingers just touched him as he worked. This was marvelous.

Speaking softly again, head ducked once more, Crowley said, “If you could please sit down so I can take off your shoes, master?”

“How nicely asked, my dear. Dear little demon. Dear little pet.” Aziraphale sat on the bed and smiled as Crowley glowed again. It seemed he liked be praised. His smile was positively radiant, perhaps the largest and the longest Aziraphale had seen him wear, as he knelt again and began to untie the laces of the angel’s shoes.

The smile lingered as Crowley ducked his head once more, and Aziraphale couldn’t resist reaching out and stroking his hair, petting him almost.

Crowley let out a deep, contented sigh at the touch, but didn’t pause his work. He pulled Aziraphale’s shoes off, then removed his tartan socks, sock garters and all. He rose and deposited them with everything else, laying even the socks out neatly and carefully. Aziraphale glanced at the untidy heap of Crowley’s own clothing and shook his head wryly.

Then Crowley knelt at his feet again and said, “If you would stand again, my master?” his voice still soft, almost serene, making Aziraphale wonder at the change in him. So still where always he’d moved restlessly. His voice so gentle when always it had been harsh. Submission seemed to have unlocked something in him, and Aziraphale felt strangely touched by that, that this newness should be offered up to him.

Aziraphale rose, and Crowley reached out to undo his belt, followed by the button on his trousers. Aziraphale felt a shiver go through him as Crowley’s fingers inevitably brushed over his cock. It was already rock hard. He hadn’t even noticed that, he’d been so caught up in the strangeness and the newness of all this, but the fact that Crowley’s submission was, well, hot as _hell_ was undeniable. 

Crowley pulled the tartan boxers down over Aziraphale’s erection, fingers just skimming it, and Aziraphale stepped out of them and his trousers. The demon added both to the neat pile of clothing, then returned and knelt once more at Aziraphale’s feet. Aziraphale tried to corral the tumble of half-formed ideas cascading through his head, but wasn’t quite able to. What, of all the things he’d read and thought about, should he do to his demon, kneeling here at his feet, eager to serve? There was a long silence, and finally Aziraphale drew in a deep breath and said, “You did well, my pet. But now, I must admit, I’m not quite sure what to do with you.”

****

Crowley was in paradise.

It wasn’t Heaven, that was much too cold and sterile and even when he’d lived there he hadn’t loved it there. It wasn’t the Garden, either, though it was more like that, but only because Aziraphale had been there then, and he was here now, and Crowley was finally able to let go and be his. He didn’t have words for how good it was, and even if his knees got sore again—though at least here was carpet in here—he felt he wouldn’t mind kneeling like this for an eternity.

“You did well, my pet,” said Aziraphale’s gentle, warm, wonderful voice, and Crowley thrilled to hear it. It wasn’t precisely a sexual thrill, but it was at least adjacent to that, and Crowley felt like he could nearly come just from his angel’s—his masters!—praise.

“But now, I must admit, I’m not quite sure what to do with you.”

“Anything you want,” said Crowley, keeping his eyes lowered.

“Anything?” Aziraphale’s voice was dubious, and Crowley didn’t have to look up to picture the inquisitively raised eyebrows. “‘Anything’ covers rather a lot of ground, my pet. I’ve read DeSade, you know. I have a pristine copy of the first printing of _120 Days of Sodom_ in the shop. Quite depraved stuff. There are things included in that, in people’s ideas about…this sort of thing, that could discorporate you. And not swiftly or easily, either. You can’t really mean _anything._”

“Anything,” said Crowley again, stubbornly. “I didn’t read DeSade, but I know what sadism is. I’m not stupid. I’ve thought about this for six thousand years. I know what masochism is too. You can do anything you want to do to me. If… If you _wanted_ to discorporate me, you could do that too.” He gave a little shiver at that. He trusted Aziraphale, and knew that he wouldn’t, but he meant it when he said the angel could if he truly wanted to.

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s hand stroked the top of his head again, and Crowley wanted to lean shamelessly into that touch. “Really?”

“Really, master.”

Aziraphale sighed softly. “I don’t want to discorporate you. But… I can hurt you, if I want? _Really?_”

Crowley couldn’t help but chuckle at the tone of Aziraphale’s voice. He sounded like a child being offered a present he wasn’t certain he could keep.

“Really,” repeated Crowley firmly.

“Well then…” Crowley dared to glance up from the corner of his eye, and saw Aziraphale looking down at him, licking his lips, and there was a spark of strange hunger in his eyes. “Up on the bed, my demon,” said Aziraphale.

Feeling a wonderful shiver of fearful anticipation at what Aziraphale might do to him running down his spine, Crowley rose and climbed into the bed.

“On your stomach,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley obeyed silently, stretching himself out on the bed, his face to the blankets, eyes closing again. His whole body was trembling ever so faintly, not in fear, but in a kind of disbelieving excitement. This couldn’t be real. He’d dreamed about this for so long, it couldn’t possibly be real! People didn’t really do such things, did they? Angels didn’t, surely. Aziraphale didn’t, most definitely! Yet there he was, the bed creaking under him as he settled onto it, sitting beside Crowley and running a hand lightly down his back.

“Now, I suppose I could miracle up some tool or toy or other. But to be honest I don’t have the foggiest notion how to use a whip, and for now, at least, I rather want to keep this personal. I believe I can hurt you quite nicely without needing any toys.” Aziraphale’s fingers curved and his nails, perfectly manicured and just long enough to bite in, scraped over Crowley’s skin. Crowley gasped at the frisson of almost-pain as Aziraphale scratched down his back.

The angel lightened his touch, doodling with one fingertip for a moment, then dug in that single nail and dragged it down Crowley’s back, hard enough to genuinely hurt now. Crowley shuddered. Oh stars above, that felt wonderful. It hurt, of course, but in a good way, in a thrilling way, in a way that let all his nerves know he was alive.

He moaned, unable to help himself, and Aziraphale, with a damnable little chuckle, brought all five fingers to bear, drawing his nails all the way from shoulder to hip, and then down over Crowley’s ass, leaving faint scratches behind.

“Stars above,” gasped out Crowley.

“Mmm. You seem to like that, my demon.”

“Yes. Oh, yes…” For the first time ever, Crowley felt no sense of shame or embarrassment about the sounds he was making. How could he? His master wanted to hurt him. Responding to that was only pleasing Aziraphale further, no doubt. All his old pride and worry and desire to seem cool and detached and above such things had vanished. He was above nothing, now.

“Good,” said Aziraphale, smiling down at him. “Then I shall continue.”

He touched Crowley with alternating caresses and vicious attacks, nails digging in one moment, hands gently sliding over skin the next. Crowley never knew when the next stinging bite of pain could come, and it was wonderful and beyond wonderful. His breath was fast and ragged, his hands soon gripping the bedsheets beneath him, his body twisting and writhing.

As Aziraphale continued he gave caresses less and less, and pain more and more, soon digging his nails in hard enough to leave ragged pink scratches behind them, marks that would linger if they weren’t miracled away. Crowley had no intention of ever removing them. They were wonderful. It was all wonderful. He shuddered at each exquisite rush of pain, moaning and crying out shamelessly.

Aziraphale growled softly and dug his nails in even harder, a sharp, swift rake of them down Crowley’s back that made him arch and cry out. “Ah, stars above! Ah master!” It was almost too much, it hurt intensely, yet it was beautiful, amazing, a rush of bodily sensation like he’d never known. His cock was rock hard beneath him, but somehow that didn’t matter at all, all that mattered was the intensity of his suffering, the endorphin rush that made his heart pound, the sense of submission as Aziraphale, his perfect angel, his wonderful master, hurt him more and more.

It started to be almost too much. Aziraphale kept digging in harder and harder, moving sometimes quickly, but more and more just digging in and dragging his nails slowly, excruciatingly, along Crowley’s skin. Crowley found himself whimpering, hands fisted in the bedsheets, panting hard. It was amazing, but how much more could he take?

“Master…” It was almost a sob, his body shuddering, back tensed, shoulders bunched as he squirmed and writhed.

“My demon,” whispered Aziraphale, his own breathing hard, heavy. “You make such wonderful sounds.”

“Master,” moaned Crowley hoarsely, then cried out as Aziraphale dug his nails in yet again. He was drawing blood now. Not much of it, but tiny beads of red followed his fingers. “Ah! Ah fuck, master! Ah stars above! Ah, Aziraphale!” It was nearly a sob, nearly a scream, the sound of someone pushed to the limit. Crowley writhed, on fire with pleasure and pain, his mind overwhelmed with it, feeling he couldn’t possibly take any more, but willing to take as much as his angel wanted to give him all the same.

The hand that had been tormenting him was suddenly stroking him gently, and for a moment he wondered if it was only a ruse, only a pause before further torments, but then Aziraphale said softly, “Good boy, good demon, my good, good pet. You’ve done so well. You’ve suffered so beautifully…”

“Oh master,” whispered Crowley, trembling, his body still on fire with it, even as the frantic thudding of his heart began to ease. “Oh, Aziraphale. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It was my pleasure,” said the angel, and he bent over and kissed the back of Crowley’s neck, which sent a deep shiver through him, from head to toe. Crowley moaned again, softly, to feel it. In its own way the kiss was as intense as the pain had been.

“Master…”

Aziraphale nipped the back of his neck, his body almost cool as he pressed against the burning fire along Crowley’s back, and Crowley gasped in shock. “Master!”

“Mmm. Your reactions are amazing, my demon. I do love you so.”

Crowley thought he might melt from it, might come from it, might discorporate from it, the feelings that filled him were so strong. He belonged to his angel, suffered for his angel, felt the rush and the high and the pleasure because of his angel. He struggled for words, and finally gasped out, “I love you, master.”

Aziraphale shifted above him, and Crowley was suddenly, intensely, intimately, _burningly_ aware of a hardness that pressed against his backside as Aziraphale straddled him. He gasped with it, pushing back without even thinking about it.

The angel chuckled, a low, pleased sound. “Do you want something, my pet?”

Crowley whimpered.

He couldn’t help it. He _did_ want something, but how could he ask for it? There were no words, there was only pain and pleasure and need and bliss, all racing through him in a confused tumble.

Aziraphale leaned back, hand running down Crowley’s well-marked back and over his ass. He groped there for a moment, and Crowley whimpered again. He struggled for breath, for words, for thoughts. Then Aziraphale’s hand was pressing between his cheeks, his fingers suddenly slick with miracled lube.

“Ah! Oh… Oh stars!” Crowley shuddered, lost in it.

“Mmm. You want me, don’t you, my pet?” Aziraphale removed his fingers, and now the head of his cock, hot and hard, was pressing at Crowley, teasing.

Crowley whimpered. “Yes!”

“Yes what, pet?”

“Yes, please!”

“Hmm. I do want you, my sweet little demon. But I don’t know if you want me badly enough.” Aziraphale’s cock nudged against Crowley, teasing horribly, not pushing in at all, no matter how much Crowley lifted his hips, trying to push back to it. “I think you need to be a little more convincing.”

Crowley whimpered again. “Please, master,” he begged, a flood of frantic words spilling from him as Aziraphale continued to tease. “Please! I do want you. I _need_ you. Please, please, please. Please, master, please, Aziraphale, please take me. Oh _please!_”

“Yes, I think I do believe you,” murmured Aziraphale, and then he was pushing in, sinking his cock into Crowley in one firm stroke, hilting suddenly enough that Crowley gasped in mingled bliss and pain as the angel bottomed out hard within him.

“Fuck, yes!” cried Crowley, overcome with it, shuddering under Aziraphale, who began to move above him. His master didn’t work up to it slowly, either, he thrust hard and fast right from the first, taking Crowley roughly, and it was perfect, completely and utterly perfect, pain and pleasure and the sense of how Aziraphale was using him overwhelming his mind, so that all Crowley could do was moan wordlessly beneath him.

It was heady, intense, and with how worked up they both were it wasn’t long before Aziraphale was moving with the short jerky thrusts that Crowley knew meant he was getting close. He clenched down hard on Aziraphale’s cock, desperate to get that ultimate reward, to bring his master to his peak. Aziraphale groaned and with just a few more hard, deep thrusts he came.

“Aziraphale! Yes!” cried Crowley as he felt it, felt Aziraphale fill him, the slick heat of it deep within him. It was quite possibly the best thing he’d ever felt, the intensity of it better by far than the more ordinary sex they’d had on previous occasions.

Aziraphale had no words, only a breathless grunt of satisfaction as he emptied himself into the demon beneath him.

Above, a muffled crack was the thunder that came with the strike of lightning hitting the roof as the angel’s orgasm spent celestial power as well as seed, but the building had a veritable forest of lightening rods by now, and so the lights remained on this time.

The moment passed, and Crowley went completely limp as Aziraphale relaxed atop him. He let out a long, slow breath, and murmured, “Thank you.”

Aziraphale kissed the back of his neck and said, “I think I ought to be thanking you.”

“Ha, no,” said Crowley, drowsily, dazedly. “No.”

Aziraphale only chuckled and kissed Crowley’s neck again, tenderly.

They rested together, still joined, for a long time, merely being close, letting the aftershocks of the intense thing they’d shared slowly fade.

At length Aziraphale rolled from atop Crowley to lie beside him, and Crowley turned to him immediately, pressing close, snuggling into the embrace he offered. “Is it your turn now?” said Aziraphale with a smile.

Crowley immediately shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No. No tit for tat, remember?”

“Ah, I see. So I use you for my pleasure, and you…?”

“Get used. That’s enough. Though, er…” Crowley squirmed, trying to not feel too embarrassed about what he wanted to ask for. He felt himself slipping out of the submissive mindset, and that was the reason he could feel embarrassment, but also the reason for his request. He wanted just a little more, just one final taste of the sweetness of belonging to Aziraphale.

“Hmm?” Aziraphale’s question was gentle, and Crowley stilled himself, relaxing into his angel’s kindness as he relaxed into his arms, remembering what he’d already trusted his master with thus far. He could trust enough for this one more thing.

“The best part is when you…praise me. Call me good boy, all that. Can you?”

“Oh my sweet, wonderful demon. Of course. You have been a very good boy indeed. You’ve given me so much pleasure tonight, so much a chance to try strange and amazing things, and so much trust and love. You’ve been the very best of boys, my pet, my demon, my love.” He kissed Crowley’s brow, and with his master’s praise singing through him, the moment was better than orgasm. Frankly, Crowley was almost surprised he hadn’t set the sheets on fire anyway.

“Thank you, master,” he murmured, and tucked his head against Aziraphale’s chest. Aziraphale stroked his hair, and Crowley felt like he could purr. He was suffused with a deep contentment that was only enhanced by the ache along his red-marked back. Tonight had been everything he’d ever fantasized about, and even better, for Aziraphale had seemed to enjoy it too.

“This is going to work, isn’t it?” murmured Aziraphale, echoing Crowley’s thoughts.

“Yeah,” said Crowley softly, drowsily. “Think it just might.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This _was_ originally the point at which this story was going to end. Then I got thinking about the binding business, and what that might mean, and ideas happened. Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks. And thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale gets a bit of a shock when things that his books neglected to mention take place during Crowley's binding.

Aziraphale was the one on his knees this time as the night deepened towards midnight, while Crowley sat restlessly on the couch, shifting between sitting normally, sprawling sideways, and perching on the couch’s arm, which got a tut from the angel when he noticed. He was filled with nervous energy, for Aziraphale was using chalk to draw a complicated ritual circle that included Crowley’s old, “true” name in several alphabets amid its many runes and sigils.

The angel had asked, a day or or two ago, when he’d been sketching diagrams of what needed to go in the circle, if seeing it there would bother Crowley.

“Maybe some, but not much. It… You… I don’t know. The name used to just belong to old pain. Now it belongs to you too.”

That had been sweet enough that Aziraphale had kissed Crowley, and kisses led swiftly to other things, so he hadn’t finished his sketches that night.

The pair didn’t always involve pain and submission in their sex life. Sometimes it was fairly ordinary, though even at their most “vanilla”, Crowley still tended to call Aziraphale “master” when he got worked up. Aziraphale found he very much liked that.

It was hard to put a finger on why, exactly. It wasn’t really that he got to do whatever he wanted, though that was certainly nice. It was more about the trust, about how incredibly sweet it was that Crowley would put himself so much in Aziraphale’s power. About the rush he got when Crowley lost all inhibitions and reacted so strongly, so helplessly to what Aziraphale was doing to him. That thrill, and Crowley’s own mirrored desire to give himself up as completely as possible, had led inevitably to this moment. It was a year and a day since the first time Crowley had submitted to him, a traditional sort of time period that Aziraphale hadn’t been able to resist, when they were choosing the date for this.

Aziraphale straightened and dusted his knees off, regarding the circle critically. Everything in the room was pushed aside to make space for it, since it was much larger than the circle he’d used to phone heaven. “Looks alright, I think. Crowley, what do you think?”

“Yeah, ‘salright,” he said shortly.

Aziraphale’s eyebrows went up, and he walked over to the couch, where Crowley was currently perched on the arm. Standing beside Crowley, Aziraphale put his arms around him, feeling the demon’s tension, and kissed his forehead softly. “You do not have to do this, Crowley dearest. I do not require it of you, or even ask it of you at all. I love what we already have, and I won’t judge you in the slightest if you decide this is too much.”

“No, I want it. Just… Never done it before, that’s all.”

“I should think not.”

“Hah. Yeah. Nobody’s going to be trying to summon a demon with _that_ name.”

Aziraphale said nothing in response, though it was the first time that Crowley had admitted he knew how famous his former self was. 

Crowley slid down off of the couch. “Okay.” He straightened himself out of his habitual slouch, and took a deep breath as he looked at the circle. “Let’s do this.”

“I’ll light the candles while you get ready, then, pet.”

While Crowley undressed, Aziraphale got the candles out. They were new, he’d bought them just for this. He hardly kept black candles on hand, but you wouldn’t want to summon or bind a demon with any other sort. These were licorice scented, for some reason, which quite possibly made them extra evil.

He got them positioned around the circle at the points of the pentagram that filled it, then carefully lit each one, sending the scent of licorice wafting into the air like a very peculiar incense. Once that was done he extinguished the more ordinary lights, plunging the room into a flickering dimness.

Aziraphale took a deep breath of his own and looked over at Crowley, who’d stripped completely naked. It was partly symbolism, and partly to avoid having objects besides himself within the circle’s bounds. Aziraphale didn’t _think_ that something as mundane as a shirt could cause any trouble, but it never hurt to be careful in such matters. Crowley’s wings were out, and his eyes showed no white whatsoever, he was as much demon and as little human as it was possible for him to be, short of taking his serpent’s form.

Aziraphale couldn’t help but think he looked magnificent, pale skin framed in black feathers, eyes gleaming warm amber in the red-gold candlelight.

“Right. You’ll need to stand in the circle before we start. Since I couldn’t separate the summoning and binding parts of the spell…”

“I know, I know, the summons might pull me out of my body if I’m not in the circle already when it starts, and don’t step on the lines while I get in. You’ve mentioned.”

“Sorry. I just don’t want it to go wrong somehow.”

“It won’t, my angel.” Crowley smiled trustingly at him. “My master. You know what you’re doing.” He stepped carefully into the center of the pentagram that filled the circle and sank to his knees there, arranging his wings to lie within the lines as well. The feathers trembled ever so faintly for a moment, then he was still, lowering his head, resting as Aziraphale had seen him rest so many times over the past year.

“I think so,” said Aziraphale, touched by his trust. “But I’ve never done this before either.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m already in the circle so it can’t yank soul and body apart, and the only other dangerous bit about a demon summoning circle is if you haven’t contained the bloody demon.” He glanced up and flashed Aziraphale a sharp-toothed grin. “Don’t think I’m too likely to come out of the circle and strangle you with your own innards.”

“How grotesque. I should hope not,” said Aziraphale primly, but he was smiling as he said it. Then he sobered. “I don’t believe there’s anything else to prepare. So. Are you ready, my dear?”

Crowley gave one short nod. His wings shivered again for a moment, then went still.

Aziraphale frowned. “You really don’t _have_ to do this if you don’t want to.”

Crowley looked up at him, golden eyes seeming to almost glow in the candlelight. “Do you not want to, then?”

“Me?” Aziraphale was taken aback by the thought.

“You keep asking if I want it. Are you asking for an excuse to back out? You can, I’m not making you do it either.”

“No! I do want this. I want you, dearest Crowley. I want to own every inch and erg of you. But you seem nervous. I don’t want to hurt you, my love. I truly won’t be upset if you’d rather delay it, or call it off.”

Crowley shook his head instant. “I want to be yours. I do. I mean it. Of course I’m nervous, though, it’s a spell doing things to my soul. I…I’m told it hurts. A lot. You know I still don’t have the tolerance I want. But I know I want it. I want to be yours. Please. Nervous I can live with. Pain I can live with. Life without you is the thing I can’t live with.”

“Oh Crowley.” Aziraphale felt a warm rush of love. “You shall be mine, in every possible way, I promise.”

Crowley smiled again, one of his softer smiles, the submissive ones, that were so strangely calm, strangely serene. “Go on, then. Cast the spell. Let me be bound to you forever.”

Aziraphale leaned out over the circle, just able to touch him, and brushed his fingers over Crowley’s cheek. “Forever.”

He let his hand fall, then straightened his waistcoat and bow tie. Crowley lowered his head again, waiting patiently. Holding a piece of paper with the words written out on it, Aziraphale began to say the spell. As he chanted the flames flickered higher, and when he reached the end of the spoken portion they suddenly became pillars, columns of light that made a cage for the demon within. They were almost blinding, and Crowley shut his eyes, but Aziraphale squinted against them and picked up the stone blade he’d prepared. He took one last deep breath and finished the spell by cutting across his palm, shedding his nearly-human, not-quite-mortal blood, and speaking the last word, Crowley’s other name, which fell into sudden silence and blackness as the candles snuffed themselves out completely. No sooner had that name finished sounding than the chalk lines leapt to glowing light, tinged red as if with hellfire, revealing that the candles had been consumed completely.

In that same instant Crowley screamed, his wings snapping open, back arching, head thrown back.

Only a moment later Aziraphale cried out as well, the knife dropping from his suddenly nerveless hand as the binding formed between them.

****

Ordinarily, demons are bound by humans, who have no aetheric magical natures. That’s rather the point, since access to that power is the reason for most bindings. So when a human binds a demon, the demon’s aetheric nature is connected to the human’s, which is to say, to nothing at all, meaning it just sort of hovers there. To somebody like Anathema, who can see auras, it would appear as a second aura, layered over the human’s natural one.

But Aziraphale was an aetheric being himself, and so when Crowley’s aetheric nature was bound to his own, it made a very direct connection, bridging their souls, letting them see each other not as physical beings, but as their truest and deepest selves, the utterly inhuman things they really were, deep down.

Crowley saw Aziraphale as a complex creature of wings and eyes, hundreds upon hundreds, wrapped in shining glory, glowing with purity and goodness. The part of his mind that had gotten used to humanity was shocked. This couldn’t be his Aziraphale, his food-loving, book-hoarding, soft-and-hard master. The part of him that remembered being an angel, oft near the forefront in these days, given all that was tied up in his old name, wanted to weep at the beautiful glory of him, at the holiness and the goodness that he radiated, and he felt perhaps that he _was_ weeping when he realized that said glory was wrapped about him, suffusing his own soul. He clung to Aziraphale, wrapping his own immaterial self around him in turn, doing something as much like crying as he was capable of in this state, and felt that he was in paradise once again to be bound eternally to this wondrous creature.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was having a very different experience. Crowley wasn’t made of wings and eyes, he was made of stars and black fire, blazing galaxies of dark power, awful and wonderful in the original sense of both those words, and the angel felt himself lost in it, a tiny speck in an ocean of flame, a comet in a galaxy of stars, but no, that last wasn’t right at all, for that would be emptiness, and this was fullness, bursting with power and a kind of terrible glory that hurt to behold, and it folded itself tighter and tighter around him, overwhelming his senses, blazing through his whole being. He felt he would dissolve in it, burn up, vanish away entirely; that if he ever opened his eyes in his body again, it would be this being of starfire and dark flame that looked out through them and not himself at all.

Quailing in helpless terror, Aziraphale cried out to it, _Crowley!_ Did his lips, in the bookshop’s back room, move as he did? It was impossible to tell. At first it was also impossible to tell if the vastness of black fire heard him, either. He was so tiny, and it so immense. How could it possibly hear a speck like him? Yet he felt a sense of regard that was at first vague, then sharp, and suddenly all that power was even more directly brought to bear on him.

He thought he might be flattened down to an atom’s thickness under it. _Crowley! Please, Crowley, let me breathe! You’re hurting me!_

He sensed a shock go through the darkness, like an earthquake that shook the universe, then suddenly the pressure was gone and he was standing in the bookshop, looking at the charred lines of the binding circle, with Crowley, looking the same as always, still kneeling there. The demon opened his eyes and looked up, and for an instant Aziraphale saw black fire in that gaze and flinched. He realized he was panting hard, and also that blood was dripping off his fingertips from where he’d cut his hand.

“Angel?” Crowley’s voice was hoarse. “What happened?” His eyes flicked to Aziraphale’s hand, and he snapped his fingers, healing the cut and vanishing the blood.

Aziraphale sank shakily to his knees. He’d barely noticed the pain of the cut, so it leaving made little impact. His mind was still reeling from the experience of feeling Crowley, and the sense of him—a universe of dark starfire—still hung at the back of his mind, threatening to surge forward and overcome him.

Crowley rose and took one long stride towards Aziraphale, then halted with a soft hiss and a flash of fangs. “The circle’s still active, I see.”

“Y-yes,” stammered Aziraphale, finally managing at least that simple word. He took a deep breath and blew it out again, trying to find some scrap of stability and calm. “I have to dismiss it. Give me a moment. You…” He looked up at Crowley, who now stood over him, the thing that separated them invisible between them, and shivered. “You were a bit much for me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Crowley frowned, looking puzzled.

Aziraphale took a deep, steadying breath and got back to his feet. He took a moment to dust off his knees and straighten his waistcoat and bow tie, then checked that his pocket watch was properly in place. A tiny, tiny fragment of him, deep within, spoke fear, and said he shouldn’t dismiss the circle, that Crowley was too terrifying, that it would be far too easy for the demon to completely destroy him.

The rest of him felt ashamed to even think it, and he scolded himself silently. _Don’t be ridiculous, Aziraphale. What are you going to do, just let him live in the circle in your back room? That’s not tenable and you know it. Anyway he’s already bound to you. That…whatever that was already happened. He’s in the circle right now and you can feel it, leaving him there won’t fix that._

“Aziraphale?” Crowley looked worried. “You alright?”

“I, ah, I’m sure I will be. One more moment.” Aziraphale looked at the circle. It had rather ruined his floor, since it was charred into it now, and he wondered how best to go about erasing it. He scowled at it, annoyed on behalf of the decor, and on behalf of the problem he now had. “Right. I have to…denature it, I suppose, since I can’t just erase it physically.” His brows drew in as he thought about that. “It would be quite easy to do with holy water, but of course I can’t risk getting any on you. I wonder what else would do it?”

Crowley had a very peculiar expression on his face, and he said, “I’ve a funny feeling that I might be genuinely immune to the stuff now.”

Aziraphale blinked. “What?”

“I could feel your…glory, I guess, just now. Your grace. It went all through me. It’s still there, just shining in me.” His wings rustled as a strange shudder went through him.

“I don’t know, I still couldn’t possibly risk it when a drop could kill you…”

Crowley smiled suddenly, and reached back. He plucked one of the small feathers from his wing and held it out. “Can’t reach out of the circle, but you can reach in. Come take that. Bless a cup, put the feather in, see what happens. I know it would’ve burned like anything, before. Kinda…had to test the batch you gave me, you know?”

“I see. Very well.” Aziraphale took a step forward and took the feather, his fingers brushing Crowley’s. It seemed strange, suddenly, that Crowley was material and human-seeming. It felt strange too to be material himself, to be holding the little tuft of black fluff in his hand. He felt dizzily off-balance, as if he might fall, but it wasn’t really a physical sensation, it was all that power at the back of his mind, all the magical inertia of it. _Hellfire_, he thought to himself. _Demon’s power that he’s given me, the way I gave him glory. Will I be immune to brimstone now, then?_

He got a cup of water from the tap and muttered a slapdash blessing over it. It wasn’t the meticulous job he’d done when he’d made the holy water for Crowley, but it would do for now. He dropped the feather in, and it floated down through the air into the cup and just sat there, getting wet. So either Crowley was right and he was immune, or Aziraphale had botched the blessing. The latter seemed much more likely.

With the feeling of strangeness lingering, Aziraphale carried the cup over to the circle, then poured some of it across the circle’s perimeter. To his shock it immediately hissed and sputtered as if he’d dropped it into flame, and a section of charred runes vanished entirely, leaving an unmarked floor behind.

Next thing he knew Crowley’s arms were around him, holding him tight, and the lanky demon was ducking to tuck his head under Aziraphale’s chin. “Master,” he murmured, and Aziraphale finally managed to shake enough of the strangeness of black fire from him to hug Crowley—and he was _Crowley_, the same Crowley as always, he was no more a thing of starfire than he was the fucking Archangel Raphael, Aziraphale told himself—tightly and stroke his hair.

“My good boy,” he murmured, invoking the familiar words for his own sake as much as for Crowley’s. “My wonderful demon.”

Crowley sighed against him, and Aziraphale echoed it, feeling the fear and tension draining from him. This _was_ Crowley, his Crowley. Even if he was also a being of unimaginable cosmic power, magically bound to his service. 

Aziraphale remembered, then, that when he’d asked Crowley to let go of him, when he was drowning in black fire, he’d used Crowley’s ordinary name, not his true name. It had been a request, not an irrevocable order, and yet Crowley had let go anyway. Aziraphale didn’t need to fear, Crowley would never hurt him.

They held each other for a long time, each calming from a different sort of shock. Eventually Aziraphale loosened his embrace, and Crowley stepped from it. “Mind if I get decent?” the demon said, and Aziraphale, still feeling more than a little strange, though certainly much better than he’d felt moments ago, nodded.

“Go ahead.”

Crowley tucked his wings away elsewhere, then put on his clothes the mundane way, while Aziraphale set about making a pot of tea. When Crowley was done dressing he came over and wordlessly took over, and Aziraphale sat on the couch and tried to make sense of all this. What the hell had just happened?

“Tea?” said Crowley, holding out a cup, and Aziraphale jumped. Crowley only continued to hold out the cup, and after a moment Aziraphale took it from him. Crowley gave the angel another faintly puzzled look, then seated himself on the floor with his own cup, something he did often these days, enjoying putting himself deliberately lower than his master, though he was naturally the taller of the two.

_Good fucking Somebody, that’s an understatement_, thought Aziraphale.

“Angel. Master. Are you alright?”

“Yes. I think so. I will be.”

“You said that already. What happened?”

“I don’t know, precisely. The literature didn’t mention _anything_ about this!” That came out more than a little peevishly.

Crowley laughed. “Oh, angel.”

Aziraphale took a sip of his tea, then leaned back on the couch. “I suppose it’s because we’re both beings of power. So instead of simply getting access to your power, it mixed with my own, and it was a bit much for me.”

“You said that already too,” said Crowley dryly.

“Yes well. I don’t know how else to describe it. You are…a lot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’d think you’d know! Didn’t you sense me as just a speck, hardly there?”

“What? No! You were…I don’t know, there wasn’t any sense of scale to it. You were just there. Your glow was everywhere, there wasn’t anything else, just me and that glow going all through me. So I held on to it, and then I…heard? Sensed? Felt you say something, and knew whatever I was doing was hurting you, so I let go.”

“You were everywhere too, but it was like you were an entire ocean and I was just a little fish in it, and down too deep at that, it was crushing me flat. You really are very much beyond me, Crowley my dear.”

Crowley frowned at that. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s just sense. Look, I hate to bring all this up, but, well… You were in a much higher choir, before. The highest, even. That means something, you know. You made stars. Plural. All by yourself. I was one of nearly fifty Principalities on the committee that made the platypus.”

“Oh.” Crowley looked entirely nonplussed. “But I’ve never been anything special as a demon. I thought I’d lost…all that.”

“You’ve always been something very special indeed, demon or no,” said Aziraphale fondly, and he reached out to stroke Crowley’s hair with the hand not occupied by tea. Crowley set down his still mostly full cup and rested his head against Aziraphale’s leg with a sigh. “Really, though, what have you tried to do as a demon that would require a lot of power? If you’ve never tried to use it, how do you know how much you have?”

“I dunno. Stopping time for a bit, at Armageddon. That’s the only time I ever remember exerting myself in, you know, a magical way.”

“Please do consider, my dear, that pulling the Antichrist himself out of time just as the end of the world was trying to go down might actually have been an extremely major working.”

Crowley’s face went through a series of expressions, and settled on a dubious frown. “I don’t know…”

“Well I do! I can sense it still there, you know, tied to the back of my mind, linked to my own power. It’s so heavy I’m surprised I can still walk!”

“Oh.” There was a long silence. Then Crowley heaved a deep sigh. “Not sure I’d have asked for this if I’d known how hard it’d be on both of us.”

Aziraphale looked down at where Crowley’s head rested on his leg and frowned faintly. Hard on him too? “I’m sorry, Crowley my dear. I don’t know how my little speck can be bothering you, though.”

Crowley looked up at him incredulously. “No?”

Aziraphale found himself flushing. “Er. No. Sorry?”

“It’s holy! It’s everything I lost! You know how long it’s been since I felt grace? Lot longer than six thousand years, let me tell you!” There were tears gathering in his eyes again, and he scrubbed at them with one hand. “‘S idiotic. Never liked heaven, never liked anybody there. Whole lot of ‘em are useless except for you. Never even liked the Almighty.” He sniffled.

“Oh Crowley. Forgive me. Here I’ve just been moaning about getting a bit of a shock, and you’ve been dealing with that. I’m so sorry.”

“Not _your_ fault, angel.”

“It’s not yours, either.” Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s hair gently, and let out another sigh. “I think we need a distraction, dearest. There was a point to all this that has nothing to do with cosmic powers, you know. You _are_ a bound demon now, after all.” He let a twinkle flash in his eye as he smiled down at Crowley. “I could make you do all sorts of things.”

Crowley swallowed hard, but it was desire, not pain or fear, that lay behind his eyes as he looked up at Aziraphale. “You could, yeah.”

“I do have to use your other name for it, of course. If that’s alright?”

“Agreed it would be when we decided to do this, didn’t I?” said Crowley, the corner of his mouth curving up in amusement. “After getting grace slopped all over me, the name is hardly a bother.”

Aziraphale shook his head, smiling, and tutted. “Such a disrespectful attitude. I believe that needs to be corrected. Get up.” He hardened his voice in command, but didn’t use the name. Not yet.

Crowley rose, already breathing fast. Aziraphale rose as well, looking him up and down. He was almost tempted to start with an order to strip, as he had that first night, and then to play around, seeing how much he could tease Crowley. But no. He could see that Crowley was already responding, the demon’s tight jeans making that easily evident, and Aziraphale felt a certain ache and tightness in that region himself. He found he didn’t really want to fiddle about with playing games just now. Today had been very demanding, he was ready for something simple, ready for a release.

With an impish smile that had a sadistic edge to it that many who knew the angel only casually would never have believed, Aziraphale said, “Raphael, _kneel_.”

Crowley went instantly to his knees, not lowering himself as he normally would but dropping to both knees at once, hard enough that the floor beneath him would almost certainly leave bruises. “Holy fuck,” he gasped.

“Interesting,” murmured Aziraphale. “What was that like?”

“I suddenly wanted to kneel more than anything in the world,” said Crowley, his eyes wide as he looked up at Aziraphale.

“How marvelous! I was afraid that commands might hurt you. But if they only fill you with desire…” The angel’s gaze was positively lascivious as he looked down at the suddenly trembling demon. Moving slowly and deliberately, Aziraphale reached down and undid his belt buckle. Crowley’s eyes were immediately riveted there, and the angel smiled as he undid his trousers and pulled them down just enough. He freed his cock, already very much erect and ready, and licked his lips as he looked at Crowley. This was going to be ever so much _fun_.

Aziraphale stepped forward, so that he was standing directly in front of the kneeling demon. “Raphael, kiss it.”

Crowley hesitated for a single heartbeat, a shiver going through him, then leaned forward and planted a fervent kiss on the head of Aziraphale’s cock.

“Good boy,” said Aziraphale.

“Fucking fuck,” said Crowley, breathlessly.

“Hmm?” Aziraphale raised both eyebrows, looking down at him.

“I tried to resist it, just to see if I could.” He shook his head. “It was… Fuck.”

Aziraphale laughed. “You’re mine now, my pet.”

“Stars, yes,” said Crowley, even more fervent than before.

“Call me master, Raphael.”

“_Master_,” said Crowley, another shudder going through him.

“Tell me you’re mine completely.”

“I am, master, I’m yours in every possible way.”

“Now, my pet, I want you to worship my cock. I want you to do everything you can to bring me pleasure. I want you to dedicate yourself fully to making me come. Do that for me, Raphael.”

“Ohfuckyesmaster,” blurted Crowley in a single rush, and then his hand was cupped around Aziraphale’s cock and his mouth was closing over the head of it, tongue working along it as he sank down, the demon eagerly employing every technique he’d learned over the past year and more of serving Aziraphale.

“Ahhh, yes. Good boy,” said the angel, putting his hand on the back of Crowley’s head and twisting his fingers through Crowley’s hair. Crowley moaned, the sound muffled around Aziraphale’s cock. It was a good sound to hear, almost as good as the feel of what Crowley was doing. He was going about his task with great enthusiasm, working back and forth, taking Aziraphale’s cock deep down his throat each time.

Aziraphale tightened his grip on Crowley’s hair, his eyes half closed as he savored the pleasure his wonderful pet was giving him. “Such a good boy,” he murmured again, knowing how much Crowley liked being praised. “Ah… Yes… Getting close… You’re doing so well, my pet. You’re so good at this. Ah… Ah, yes… Ah, Crowley!”

His hands were fisted in Crowley’s hair, and he knew he must be hurting the demon, but Crowley didn’t slacken his efforts one tiny bit, if anything he only increased them, diving down deep on Aziraphale’s cock over and over, throat and tongue working at it, his eyes tightly closed as he focused every bit of his attention on pleasing his master.

Aziraphale cried out again, wordlessly this time, trembling on the very edge, and his grip tightened, holding Crowley down on his cock. The demon didn’t struggle, he only kept caressing it with tongue and throat, and with a final cry Aziraphale came hard, his seed spurting out down Crowley’s throat as thunder boomed above.

Some tiny part at the back of his mind thought that he really should figure out some way to not do the lightning thing. The shop had a good lightning rod, but still… Mostly, though, he was too busy enjoying the bliss that rushed through him as Crowley drank his seed down eagerly. There was no choking or spitting this time, he stayed just where he was until he’d gotten every drop.

Finally Crowley pulled back, gasping in a desperate breath and bracing himself on hands and knees as he recovered. Aziraphale meanwhile stumbled back to collapse on the couch with a satisfied sigh. After a moment he tidied himself away and did his belt up again, then said “That was marvelous, my pet. Thank you.”

Crowley crawled over and put his head in Aziraphale’s lap. He was still panting hard as he lay there in an untidy sprawl of long limbs.

“How was that for you, love?”

“Fuck. It was… No words for it.”

“In a good way, I hope?”

“Oh yeah.” Crowley sighed, his breath starting to slow. “Yeah. It was just all reaction, no thought, just _needing_ you.”

“I could rather tell.” Aziraphale couldn’t keep from grinning, and Crowley looked up and rolled his eyes, shifting to lounge against Aziraphale’s legs. Aziraphale snorted. “Careful with that attitude, my dear little pet. You could get yourself in trouble.”

“Trouble, hmm? Sounds like my kind of thing.” Crowley grinned up impudently.

Aziraphale could only laugh in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My partner and I worked out an entire ridiculous headcanon about the monotreme creation committee, because we are dorks. :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beelzebub always had plans for Crowley, and they're not going to give said plans up just because they lost their temper and tried to have him killed.

Somewhere, in the deepest pits of Hell, a meeting was taking place. Specifically, it was being held in the room that had been meant for Crowley’s doom, though the embarrassing failure of a bathtub had been spirited away. Beelzebub’s throne remained, and two other chairs had been added, as well as a table. Hastur sat in one chair. Dagon in the other.

They were meeting here, these three alone, because they didn’t want any other demons to know all that they were likely to discuss. They had narrowly avoided complete chaos in hell by getting Crowley out of the place as swiftly as possible. Bringing up his unnatural abilities where other demons might hear—especially given what else these three, among few in hell, knew about him—was far too dangerous.

They were all silent for a time, but Beelzebub finally worked themself up enough to take charge and get things started, despite the feeling—shamefully like terror—that coiled about the base of their immaterial spine whenever they thought about the subject at hand. “We need to do zzzomething about Crowley.”

“He must be punished,” hissed Dagon.

“He must suffer,” said Hastur, flatly.

Beelzebub tried not to sigh. “Short-zzighted foolzz,” they snapped.

Dagon snarled with sharp, shiny teeth. Hastur stared with his flat black eyes, lower lids twitching. Neither dared lash back at the insult, though.

“Punishment is bezzide the point,” said Beelzebub. “You know who and what he wazz before hizz Fall. He izz—or at least wazz—very powerful. We all know thizz is why he was the firzzt zzent to Eden. Why he wazz given zzo many vital tazzkzz down the yearzz. He zzuzzzzeeded where all otherzz might have failed. Hell cannot afford to lozze his power.”

“You were as eager to kill him as the rest of us,” rasped Hastur.

“The world had _juzzzzzzzzt_ failed to end. We were dealing with all the legionzz of Hell, worked up for war, with no war to zzend them to. I wazzzzzzz…overwrought. We all were. It wazz a mizztake I won’t repeat, I promizze you.”

“So you want to get him back. Put it all back the way it was,” said Dagon, and there was a twitch under her eye that suggested fear.

“If we can. And why not? It wazz good then.” Beelzebub didn’t have to say that it was not so good now. Hell was restless. Work on Earth had always disproportionately lain in Crowley’s lap—Hell had absolutely no idea how little Crowley had _actually_ done—and now the demons were alternately angry at the lack of Armageddon and pissed off about having to do more tempting than ever. The energy of the first was thankfully channeled somewhat into the second, else the legions of Hell might be in outright rebellion, but the demons were still on edge all the same. “If we can punish him in zzome way it will zzettle thingzz, but even if we can’t punish, getting him back will help.”

“I’m not so sure I want him back,” growled Hastur. “We’ve seen what he can do. We could never trust him.”

“There are thingzz that can be done to control a demon, onzze he’zz down here again,” said Beelzebub darkly, and the other two flinched, but then Hastur nodded and Dagon did as well.

“_If_ we can get him back.” Hastur shook his head. “If he doesn’t do some other sodding miracle with whatever power he has now.”

“It was a trick,” said Dagon. “It has to have been. Backchannels have informed us that the angel was immune to brimstone too. They did something for each other somehow. If we can catch him unprepared, without a chance to repeat the trick…”

“Dangerous,” said Hastur. “If it _wasn’t_ a trick…” His frog shuddered, betraying the fear he was trying not to show. All three demons were twitchy, nervous. 

Beelzebub scowled, not liking this this one bit. Three Lords of Hell, afraid of just one demon with no rank whatsoever. But of course he was, and had always been, much more than “just” one demon, even if he himself had never had any idea of that particular fact. “He’zz just gone native,” they said finally. “Juzzt become a little too human.”

“Well, and if he has,” ventured Hastur, “what use bringing him back? He’ll be human then, won’t he? He won’t be what he was before. We have no use for humans. He’d be just one more damned soul.”

“Going native wouldn’t explain the angel,” said Dagon. “Brimstone kills humans too. I still think it was a trick.”

“We know how powerful he is,” said Hastur, and his frog shuddered again. “Why does it need to be a trick? Maybe he’s just that strong.”

“That wouldn’t explain the angel either,” snapped Dagon. “He’s just a Principality, isn’t he? How could he have escaped the brimstone? Anyway, no demon is so strong that holy water has no effect. Holy water is fucking _holy_. A stronger demon is just more demonic. He should have exploded like a firework. They traded powers somehow.”

“How?” asked Beelzebub. “It’s a ridiculouzzz notion. Holy thingzz and unholy don’t mix. I’m zzurprizzed they can carry on the way they do. I’m zzurprizzed they can even touch! Zzome kind of ezzzchange of powerzz zzeemzz unlikely. I think my theory izz the more likely, he’zz juzzt been on Earth zzo long he’zz become too human, that’zz all.”

“Then he’s of no use to us,” said Dagon, irritably, teeth showing in a snarl of tarnished silver.

“We could find out,” said Beelzebub, finally coming to their point. “If he’zz gone fully human, he’ll be eazzy to kill.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to repeat that mistake,” dared Hastur, almost sneering.

Beezlebub gave him a look that said there might be trouble for that later. “If he zztill hazz hizz power, he’ll zzurvive it, and then we’ll know what to do with him. If he diezz, he wazz only human, and no uzze to uzz.” They smiled darkly, their flies buzzing in eager anticipation of victory. “It’zz a real win-win.”

Dagon smiled immediately, nodding, seeming very pleased at the idea of Crowley dead.

Hastur shook his head, but didn’t raise any further objection, and the three set about figuring out exactly how to test Crowley’s mortality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today. A much longer one tomorrow!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley can't resist trying something a little crazy.

Aziraphale could tell that Crowley was restless. He’d been restless for about a week now. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. The demon hardly ever held still in any case. But Aziraphale knew Crowley as no one else did except perhaps God, and, blasphemous as that idea might be, he wasn’t even sure about Her.

So he was very sure that something was on Crowley’s mind. The question was, what?

He didn’t seen unhappy. Their sex life, liberally spiced with the use of Crowley’s binding, was wonderful, their day-to-day life was comfortable and satisfying, and Aziraphale couldn’t think of anything that might be upsetting the demon.

He wasn’t sure it was an “upset” exactly, but it was certainly something.

Before Aziraphale worked himself up to do something about it, though, Crowley turned up at the bookshop one day, bursting through the doors and declaring, “Pack your bags, angel, we’re going on a holiday!”

Aziraphale gave Crowley an amused look. “We are, are we? To where?”

Crowley glanced around, but the shop was empty, and a grin blossomed on his face as he said, “To the Pillars of Creation.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Isn’t that a nebula?”

“It’s part of one, yes.” Crowley was still grinning broadly.

“Somehow I think I can skip the bags, then. I rather doubt there’s a hotel there.”

Crowley waved a dismissive hand. He was nearly vibrating with manic energy, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Come on. Close up the shop. Let’s go.”

“Crowley, dearest, just how are we going to get there? And _why_ are we going there? I’m not objecting, exactly, but this is rather sudden.”

Crowley settled his feet on the floor for a moment, and his expression turned serious. “We’re getting there the way I used to get there, you know, back when. I know how to do it, still. _That_ part I’m sure about.”

Aziraphale walked over to Crowley and put a hand on his shoulder. “What part aren’t you sure about, then?”

“If I can still… If your power mixing with mine means I can…create again. Demonic power is destructive, not creative, but I can feel holiness all the time now. I’ve been thinking about that all this week.”

“Ah. I see.” Aziraphale felt a flicker of worry. “You know my power really isn’t very much, Crowley dearest. I don’t want to see you let down about that. It might not be enough to let you do such things.”

“It should. If you put a cup of holy water in a bathtub, the whole tub is holy water now, right?”

“Well, yes. But there are limits to that sort of thing. If you drop a cup of holy water in the ocean, the whole sea isn’t holy water, else there’d be no unblessed water on the planet by now.”

“I know. I just can’t help but hope…” Crowley shrugged.

“So you want to test it out. Why go all the way out into space, though? Couldn’t you just make something here on Earth?”

Crowley cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly adorably flushed. “Well, er… I only ever did stars. I don’t know how to make anything else. Be a bit of a problem if I made a new star right here.”

Aziraphale blinked. “You want to make a new star.”

“We’re going to a star nursery. New stars happen there all the time. Nobody will notice.”

“Somebody rather might, Crowley dearest.”

“Well, some human astronomer will just have to be surprised. Anyway, it’s lightyears off, nobody will see it for ages. And if Heaven or Hell notice, what are they going to do about it?”

Aziraphale shook his head, but it was with a fond smile, and he squeezed Crowley’s shoulder warmly. “I suppose you’re probably right.”

“I’m always right.” Crowley grinned. He leaned in and planted a kiss on the tip of Aziraphale’s nose. “You will come with me, won’t you? We don’t have to go right this minute, but I don’t want to go alone. I want you there.”

“Of course, dearest. I’ll just close up the shop. It’s not as if it’s busy.”

“Thank you, my angel. You’re so good to me.” Crowley beamed at Aziraphale, who couldn’t help but beam back.

Shutting up the shop took no time at all, and soon the pair were strolling down the street together, daring to hold hands as they went.

“So, ah, how do we get where we’re going?” asked Aziraphale.

“We fly,” said Crowley. He was still grinning just a little madly, when Aziraphale glanced over, and he had his wings out. Aziraphale gasped to see them, for they were no longer charcoal black, but were instead a dark silver that shimmered with impossible highlights in every shade of the rainbow.

“Oh!” Azirapahle couldn’t help the exclamation.

Crowley stopped and turned back. “Angel?”

“Your wings!”

Crowley looked over his own shoulder, and suddenly went very, very still. “Oh,” he said at length.

Feeling very strange about all this, Aziraphale brought his own into being at his back.

They were the same color.

“Oh my,” he said softly.

“Oh no,” said Crowley. “Oh angel…”

“It’s alright,” said Aziraphale, suddenly breaking into a broad, genuine smile. “Don’t you see? It’s alright.”

“Is it?” Crowley frowned at him.

“I haven’t Fallen, Crowley, dearest. I haven’t. I would have noticed, I’m sure.”

Crowley snorted. “Fuck yeah, you would have.”

“Then it’s fine. I’m still an angel, you’re still a demon, we’re just both also…alike somehow. Shared. Tied together. It must be because of the binding.”

“Yeah. Didn’t think I could tarnish your wings, though, angel. I’m sorry.” Crowley’s eyes were hidden behind their shades, but Aziraphale could see pain writ plainly on his face all the same.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” said Aziraphale instantly, firmly. “I don’t feel any loss, I assure you. They’ll work just as well as ever.”

“Well, so do mine,” said Crowley softly. He reached over his shoulder, touching shining silver for a moment, almost wonderingly. “They always have flown just fine, even at their blackest. I’m sure these will as well. And maybe, well… Maybe the thing I’m doing here, with the star, will work after all, if I’ve enough of grace to have wings like this.”

“I hope so,” said Aziraphale gently.

“You really don’t mind yours not being white?” Crowley looked torn, as if he wanted to hear both possible answers at once.

“I genuinely don’t, I promise,” said Aziraphale, and spread his own pewter-colored wings wide.

They took to the sky together, wingtips just shy of touching, and for a while they just flew mundanely together, or as mundanely as an angel and a demon could. “Fly in my slipstream, angel,” said Crowley eventually, and Aziraphale did, moving just behind and to one side.

Geese fly in “V” formation because that position, just behind and to one side, draws any followers along in the lead flyer’s wake, and it’s just the same for airplanes, and also the same for angels. It works for any flying thing in any number from two to thousands.

So Aziraphale followed Crowley as Crowley began gradually flying faster. The minor miracle that kept anyone from noticing them was joined by a larger miracle, a peculiar change in velocity that made Aziraphale’s stomach lurch rocketing Crowley both forward and upward, Aziraphale pulled inexorably in his wake.

They arced through the sky, soaring over London, but their course tilted up more and more, and the city was soon lost in clouds beneath them. They went faster, then faster still, Aziraphale suddenly aware that something was keeping the wind that should have been in his face from blinding him, and something was pulling him on even faster than Crowley’s natural wake should have. They were moving as fast as a jet plane now, and only accelerating, the sky around them turning dark as the air began to thin.

They went faster still, the sky sliding from blue to black, and now there were stars. Soon they no longer needed shelter from the wind, for there was no more air. Crowley altered their course, first broadly, sending them curving across the sky, wings still spread, Aziraphale’s wingtip hovering just behind his. Then more subtly, tweaking their course a bit here and a bit there, until they were headed towards one part of the sky. The Earth was a blue globe behind them, then a blue marble, then a blue dot, and then gone. Aziraphale could tell that they were going faster all the time, piling speed upon speed.

The sun, already only a bright star as the Earth became a speck, shrank behind them until it was hard to pick it out from among the countless other stars.

For a while after that the sense of speed seemed a lie, as nothing else moved. They hung in space, the stars strung about them, and seemed to be perfectly still. As time passed, though, slowly the stars began to shift as they streaked through the vast blackness at speeds that swiftly became impossible, but happened anyway. The pair outran light through space, though they saw none of the strange effects that would have happened if they’d somehow done that by more ordinary means. Ahead of them something became visible; first a little, blurry smudge of light, which slowly grew into a vast swirl of light and shadow, something that would be almost recognizable to humans who’d seen the false-color images of it from the Hubble telescope.

Suddenly they were sweeping up to it, the whole thing bathed in starlight, clouds of dust shimmering with yellow, white, blue, and red; the colors subtle, nothing at all like the vivid, artificial tones of the photos, but instead a real thing, solid and shining.

They slowed, much more rapidly than they’d accelerated, and Aziraphale drew in a deep, calming breath, though he breathed in immaterial celestial ether now, not air, for there was none here. The gesture was just the same as when Crowley slowed the Bentley, though, the angel glad to be moving at a sane and sedate pace once more.

The pair hung now within the nebula, before a towering pillar of dust and starlight, keeping company with two more like it. The Pillars of Creation, as astronomers had named the unique astronomical feature. The dust within the three vast towers was slowly coalescing, gradually gathering into massive clumps of matter that would, once they reached a certain threshold, collapse inward and ignite, becoming stars.

Crowley hovered for a moment, Aziraphale still just off his wing, then swooped forward again, covering a distance further than the width of the solar system in seconds. He stopped once more, so close to the pillar of dust that it become the universe, nothing else visible save black space at their backs. It was lumpy and uneven, and Crowley fixed his gaze on one section where the dust was a little thicker, a little more closely gathered. There was a tension in him, a mingled fear and hope, and he said anxiously, audible through the ether rather than through atmosphere, “Here goes nothing.”

Aziraphale sensed power suddenly sparking in Crowley. The bond between them echoed with it, but nothing seemed to happen.

Crowley didn’t look disappointed, though, he only stared at the dark cloud of dust ahead of him, pouring power into it, and after a moment Aziraphale began to notice that a segment of it was growing more dense, dust gathering in at a speed that seemed slow, and yet was lightning fast as such things were measured.

It took an eternity, minutes piling up into hours as the cloud slowly contracted, concentrating into a sphere, then spinning itself out into a disk with a denser sphere at the heart of it. It was glacially slow and yet it raced, thousands or even millions of years compressing into those few hours, and Aziraphale felt the power that Crowley was spending recklessly into the thickening disk as a hum through his bones that vibrated out to every extremity, even to the tips of his feathers. It was strong beyond belief even though he was only catching the fringes of it. The power of creation burned in the demon, and Aziraphale wondered, suddenly, if he could be considered a demon at all now, with his silver-shining wings and his aura of grace.

If Crowley was no longer a demon, then what _was_ he? And what was Aziraphale now, with his own wings, pewter-dark compared to the white they had been? Surely Crowley wasn’t an angel. Surely Aziraphale wasn’t a demon. Could they be something else? Something different? Something new?

Even as he thought that, there was a sudden shift in the nascent star, the sphere at the center of it collapsing inward in seconds, and then, silently but with what seemed like it should be a bang or a whoosh or a titanic, rumbling boom, light exploded from the newly-kindled star, a hard, bright ball of light where the dark sphere of dust had been only an instant before. It glowed blue-white, and the glow swept the more tenuous bits of stardust ahead of it in an expanding explosive shell that rushed over the pair and out into space beyond.

Aziraphale felt something like awe kindle in him at the sight.

“I did it,” whispered Crowley into the ether. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “I did it! Aziraphale, angel, master, did you see? I did it! I can create again!”

Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley and squeezed him tightly. “I did see. I do see, and it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful, my love.”

They shared a kiss then, suspended there in space, unfathomable blackness to one side and the blue-hot light of Crowley’s new star to the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably a little silly and is definitely self-indulgent, but I had fun writing it.
> 
> P.S. I'm opening up my [a Discord server](https://discord.gg/wCQKayx) on a kind of trial basis to new members, because I feel I'd like to make some new friends, and what better place to start than people who like the same kind of stories as me? It's not Good Omens themed, it's for my writing in general, and for my friends to chat. It is an 18+ server, because I like to be able to discuss all my stories there, including the mature ones. Feel free to join if that sounds interesting to you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The demons and angels tasked with keeping tabs on Our Heroes tend to have a bad time of it, don't they?

Seven thousand light years away, give or take a few, the creation of a new star was, of course, completely invisible to human astronomers. The light would take, well, seven thousand years, give or take a few, to get there. But the news of its creation nevertheless reached not Earth itself, but the realms Below, where things like light speed weren’t necessarily relevant.

Heaven and Hell both kept track of miracles; of the uses, large or small, of demonic or angelic power. In Heaven, miracles arrived as text messages on immaterial phones, labeled with name and time and power level. The specifics of exactly what had been done were not recorded automatically, but could be looked up if it were necessary for some reason.

It actually worked precisely the same way in Hell, but the aesthetics were different. Pieces of parchment with scorched and stained edges appeared in demonic inboxes, bearing just the same information. There were a couple dozen demons who organized it all, divvying up tracking the demons at work Above among them. One of them in particular, whose name was Ose, had been assigned Crowley, and was very, very, very used to the frequent poof of parchment appearing on his desk, for Crowley was fond of pointless, useless, stupid miracles.

The little numbers beside the name and date were indications of “order”, which is to say they ran from the theoretical possibility but actual impossibility of a first-order miracle—which has only ever happened once, when God created the universe—down to an infinite tail of petty little sixteenth order shoe-lace tanglings and so on. Crowley, like most demons, did pretty much nothing but double-digit miracles, though Ose did have one fascinating paper with a large number five on it in burnt-coal ink filed away. That had happened while the demons were all mustered for Armageddon, so he hadn’t been at his desk to get it, but he’d found it there when he reluctantly returned to the hellish tedium of his job, and he’d been quite astonished by it.

Ose was currently rather hoping that the level of paperwork he had to do might drop a bit in the future, for he’d heard a rumor that Crowley was going to be either killed outright or dragged back to Hell.

Then again, he’d heard that Crowley had been dragged back to Hell once already, and had done something unspeakable involving holy water and the Archangel Michael, which had gotten him sent right back up to Earth, so maybe it was just a rumor. He rather hoped not, though. It will be nice to do a little less filing.

Just as he was thinking that, another bit of parchment popped into place in his inbox. Ose reached for it, reading the familiar “The demon known as Crowley, blah, blah, blah” at the top, the current date and time, and then… Oh fucking _bless_ it.

Ose stared at the number three. His eyes flicked around it, expecting a smudged one that he just hadn’t noticed, but no, there was nothing, that was definitely just a three standing there all by itself.

He’d never seen a three before. _Nobody_ had ever seen a three before. They just didn’t happen. Demons didn’t do miracles on that scale. God did. Satan himself could. Really important angels had done threes when all the details of the universe had been being put into place, and the most powerful angels on the creative team had been making stars and building planets around them. But a _demon_ do something like that? No way. Except it seemed that a demon had, because the number was right there, staring at him.

Feeling a twist of terror, because the lords of hell weren’t always great about not killing the messenger, Ose nevertheless took the bit of parchment and got to his feet. Somebody needed to be told about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one. Very long one coming, but maybe not for a bit, because I'm going camping for a whole week.
> 
> Meet Ose, Radueriel's demonic counterpart. He's not going to have any better a time of it, either.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley just can't resist tempting Aziraphale to use the binding on him, and Aziraphale really doesn't mind being so tempted. He's just enough of a bastard, after all, to have fun being a bit of a sadist.

Aziraphale folded in his wings with a little sigh of regret, and Crowley echoed it. It was good to be back on the world that had been home for so long, yet it seemed like the light of his own star still hummed through his veins, all tangled up with the demonic power and angelic glory, and it was an inevitable letdown to come down to Earth again after that.

The Bentley was still parked at the curb outside the bookshop, but Crowley didn’t step towards it. Instead he looked up at the sky. “Getting late,” he noted.

“So it is.” Aziraphale smiled at Crowley’s transparency. “Care to stay the night, my dear?”

Crowley flashed a swift smile. “It’d be nice.”

“Indeed it would be,” agreed the angel, and he and Crowley walked hand in hand into the bookshop. 

Crowley felt more than a little strange, still, as he walked into the familiar space. It was going to be a while before he settled down from making the star. The fact that it had worked, that the dust had gathered and the star had ignited, had actually been quite a shock. He hadn’t really believed it until that moment, for all that he’d felt Aziraphale’s grace, for all that he trusted when Aziraphale said he had vast power. He’d half expected for all that to have proved to be some kind of misunderstanding, but instead it had worked just like it had that very first time, when God had cupped Her hands around his and shown him how to do it. Or like any of the millions of times after that in the timelessness before the universe really got started, when he’d built constellations in joyous harmony with Gabriel and Michael and all the other archangels.

Crowley sometimes wondered if that wasn’t part of why Heaven was the way it was. Heaven really didn’t seem to know how to deal with humanity, how to deal with the sprawling, untidy messiness that was life. They’d sealed themselves away from it in a space as clean as starlight, and perhaps that was why. Perhaps it was because those in charge had spent eternities hanging stars. Meanwhile Aziraphale, the most human angel possible, even from the first, had spent that same eternity on a committee designing monotremes.

Somehow that was just perfect to contemplate, and Crowley smiled as he thought it. Both the idea that platypuses had been done by committee, and the idea that the wonderful but more than a little quirky Aziraphale had been involved.

They reached the back room, with its worn tartan couch and its clutter of books. There wasn’t an inch of the bookshop, back or front, that didn’t have books. Even the counters of the kitchenette had a few scattered volumes, though those were at least mostly cookbooks.

Aziraphale started making tea. Crowley found himself pacing restlessly, mind still churning over his past, reluctant to imagine his future. He could create again, but what use was that? The universe ticked on by itself now, nobody _needed_ to go around making stars.

“Crowley, dearest, sit down and have a cup of tea.”

Crowley gave Aziraphale a glance, feeling a flicker of mischief. “Is that an order?”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed, though there was a hint of a smile curving the corner of his mouth. “If it needs to be to get you to sit.”

“It might be,” said Crowley, grinning like a naughty schoolboy. He couldn’t resist trying to, well, trying to _tempt_ Aziraphale into using the binding on him sometimes.

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed a further fraction, and the little curl of a smile turned ever so slightly sadistic. “Raphael, sit.”

Crowley felt the rush of overwhelming need to obey filling him, and he dropped to the couch, not sprawling so much as flinging himself onto it, actually careless of how he landed rather than carefully calculated to _look_ careless.

Fuck, the total loss of control was always such a thrill. It was wonderful, in a way that was hard to put into words. It settled all his restlessness, calmed the way his mind wouldn’t stop fretting over things, silenced the constant hum of questions and nonsense that always bounced around in his head. Yet at the same time it excited him, reminded him that Aziraphale owned him, brought to mind the countless nights of sexual submission he’d given his angel. Crowley sat on the couch, panting, and looked up at Aziraphale with wide eyes as all that flowed through him. “Yes, master,” he said, belatedly but sincerely.

Aziraphale handed him the teacup with a smile. “Good boy.”

Crowley sighed happily, then took a sip of the tea. He relaxed further as the hot liquid went down his throat, and when he finished the cup he removed his sunglasses and set them aside with it.

“How are you doing?” Aziraphale had finished his own cup, and then tidied up after, and now he sat down beside Crowley and took his hand, stroking it gently with his soft, strong fingers.

“Good,” murmured Crowley. “Everything’s still… Dunno. Unsettled sometimes. All this new holiness. Finding I can actually still create. All that.”

“I can imagine. If there is anything I can do for your, my dear, you have only to ask.”

Crowley shrugged. “Be here.”

“I shall be.” Aziraphale smiled, still stroking his hair slowly. “Is hearing your old name bothering you at all? I don’t have to do things that way if it is.”

Crowley felt himself flush. “Worth it,” he said.

Aziraphale chuckled. “I see. _Does_ it bother you, though? Be honest, please. I just want to know. I’ll keep doing it if you want me to, don’t worry.”

Crowley shrugged. “Some. Not much. It’s been long enough, honestly, and I’ve gotten used to hearing it. I think I spent most of the renaissance flinching until the rawness started to rub off some. Couldn’t avoid hearing it for a while, you know?”

“Oh, the artist.”

“Yeah. Tried to stay away from him, but I swear somebody in Hell knew that something about Italy was bugging me, I kept getting assigned stupid little missions there.” He frowned. “It’s possible they knew, actually. Nobody ever talks about old names there, but…Lucifer knew. Maybe the rest did too.” Crowley shrugged again. “Anyway, I got used to at least hearing it.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“It’s funny,” said Crowley, casting his mind back. “I never thought I’d be famous. First time I heard some human say that name it was a shock.”

“When was that?”

“The business with Moses. You remember, we were hanging around to see how the thing with the tablets would turn out. I remember telling him later that he should write some other things down, too. Had no idea what that would lead to, let me tell you! I’m still not sure if I should count the Bible as a victory for my side or for yours, really.” He shook his head, remembering that now more than ever there were no sides for them, but the old way of speaking was hard to shake. It always was difficult to shift language. He worked at it, trying to keep up with the times, but it _was_ work.

“He mentioned…your old name?”

“Not him, Aaron. He was full of stories about all kinds of things. Man was a born storyteller. He told me a bunch of stuff about angels and demons, most of it not quite right, but there were true bits sprinkled in, and he knew the names of all the archangels. Though he didn’t know I’d…fallen. Nobody seems to know.”

“Not even in Heaven,” said Aziraphale quietly. “I certainly had no idea. It’s assumed that, ah, that Raphael is just not much involved in things, but that he’s still around somewhere. Nobody speaks of archangels falling.”

Crowley nodded. “Figures.” He closed his eyes and sighed softly. “Rather talk about something else for a while, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Of course,” said Aziraphale. “You know I would never hurt you, dearest.”

“Only the good kind of pain,” said Crowley, cracking his eyes open lazily and giving Aziraphale a lascivious look.

That made Aziraphale laugh with wicked delight. “Well, my dear pet, I think perhaps I should hurt you in the best possible way tonight. I suspect it might settle you down a bit, truly. What do you think of that?”

“Whatever my master desires,” said Crowley, and his tone was dry, sarcastic even, but they both knew he meant it.

“I desire _you_, my dear,” said Aziraphale, softly, passionately.

Crowley drew in a swift breath, all sarcasm draining out of him at Aziraphale’s roughened voice. “Master…”

“It never gets old, does it?” Aziraphale smiled and worked his fingers through Crowley’s hair.

Crowley gave a shiver, but managed to reply impishly, “On the scale of our lives it might, it’s only been about one six-thousandth or so.”

Aziraphale snorted. “Ridiculous. I can assure you, my pet, that neither your service nor your love will ever grow old.”

“Aziraphale…” Crowley looked up at him lovingly, and Aziraphale returned that look, filling Crowley with a warm glow. It really never did grow old; not his presence, not his love, not the intimacy their shared, nor the dominance games either. It was all wonderful, each and every moment they were together. 

Then Aziraphale’s smile shifted, showing a glint of sadistic pleasure, and he said, “You’re being quite insolent tonight, you know. Almost as if you want to provoke me.”

Crowley put on an air of exaggerated innocence. “Me? I would never do such a thing.”

Aziraphale shook his head and tisked. “Lying, too. Terrible. I believe I’m going to have to punish you.”

“Ah, but what if I don’t cooperate with my punishment?” Crowley’s grin was far too wide, enjoying tempting Aziraphale again, pushing him into giving them what they both wanted.

Aziraphale’s eyes were narrowed, his stern expression sending a marvelous shiver down Crowley’s spine. “You’re on very dangerous ground, my pet.” 

“I’m just asking questions,” popped out of Crowley before he could think about it. Fuck. He’d just more or less equated Aziraphale with the Almighty. Thankfully, though, the angel didn’t seem to notice the inadvertent blasphemy. Crowley had avoided talking about his Fall, so Aziraphale probably had no way of knowing the echo of the past in Crowley’s laughing words. It was only his own ancient guilt that made Crowley think of it.

“Pets who question their masters get punished, whether they cooperate or not,” said Aziraphale, innocently continuing the ancient echo. Crowley pushed it aside. He trusted Aziraphale, which was more than he could say about God.

“Yeah, well…” Crowley gave Aziraphale a shrug and a casual grin, skinning over old hurt for the thousandth time, at least. It was easier now, though. 

And got easier still when the angel shook his head and said, “Crowley, my pet, if you’re not bare-arsed and over my knee within two minutes, you are going to be well and truly in trouble.”

He heard the laughing smile behind the stern tone, knew that it was all part of the game, knew that Aziraphale wasn’t truly angry at him, he was only seeking an excuse to give in to temptation, as it were. Crowley gave him more of said excuse, lounging back against the couch and tipping his head back to look up at Aziraphale upside-down. “Oh sure, sure. Two minutes is plenty of time, though. I’ll get to it. Would hate to disappoint you, but I’d hate to rush.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat, and he grabbed a handful of Crowley’s hair, making him arch back with a gasp as he was suddenly pinned awkwardly to the couch. “I believe I’ve been overly generous in my time estimate, then,” said Aziraphale’s calm, hard voice. “I want you bare and over my knee in the next ten seconds, _Raphael_.”

_Fuck_. The name shocked through Crowley, like it always did, setting his whole being on fire with desperate need. He suspected it wouldn’t be long before pure Pavlovian association robbed those syllables of the last of their old sting, for it was glorious to find himself tearing his trousers down with trembling haste, _burning_ to please his master.

He would have flung himself violently over Aziraphale’s knee, but with the need to please and obey came a need to not harm, even so small a harm as that, so he positioned himself as quickly as he could, but carefully, bared bottom turned up, and his already hardening cock rubbing against Aziraphale’s thigh as he bent over the angel’s lap.

“Much better,” said Aziraphale, almost smugly. That too was part of Crowley’s enjoyment. He knew that Aziraphale did much of this for his sake, but the way the angel obviously enjoyed his part in all this was important too. The little sound of satisfaction he made as his fingers started kneading Crowley’s ass definitely indicated he was enjoying himself. Crowley tried not to squirm too much. The urgent need of being commanded by his name had faded now that he’d obeyed, but he was still keyed up, breathing fast, tensed in anticipation.

The squeezing and caressing suddenly stopped, and Crowley had just enough time to draw in a breath in preparation before Aziraphale’s hand smacked across his backside. The first spank was sharp enough to sting, but relatively gentle as yet. Crowley knew they wouldn’t stay that way for long, though, and while part of him tensed even further, another part, deep within, started to untense, to unravel into a strange sort of relaxation as the first sparks of pain flared through him.

Aziraphale didn’t speak. Sometimes he would say things, tell Crowley how terrible and wicked he was, punish him verbally as well as physically, but tonight he only began to deliver a carefully measured dose of pain, fuzzing Crowley’s mind with it as Aziraphale’s hand smacked into his ass over and over, building swiftly from a slight sting to an intense thud that made Crowley cry out with each blow.

When Crowley’s ass was well and truly reddened Aziraphale finally relented, with one final, firm smack!

“Ah!” Crowley was lost in it, mind awash with pain, body awash with endorphins, cock rock hard where it pressed against Aziraphale’s leg. The angel seemed to ignore that, only rubbing his hand over Crowley’s ass, murmuring soft words of praise.

“You’ve been so good, my pet. You endured so well for me. I do love hurting you like this, you sound so beautiful in your pain.”

“Master,” panted Crowley, the closest thing to a coherent response he could manage.

“My sweet, wonderful pet.” Aziraphale squeeze his ass again, groping and kneading at it, making Crowley squirm and whimper as he prodded the sore spots. The angel’s fingers slipped between the cheeks to press at the pucker of Crowley’s entrance, and he moaned in response.

“Do you want me, my pet?” 

Aziraphale sounded amused, but Crowley couldn’t summon anything like a snappy reply, only a breathless, “Yes, master. Always.”

“Good boy.”

Crowley squirmed more, the praise sending a warm, shivery feeling all through him.

Aziraphale’s fingers continued to make slow circles, and Crowley continued to squirm and writhe, grinding his cock against Aziraphale’s leg. Aziraphale chuckled. “You seem to want something, my pet.”

Crowley whimpered. “Master… Take me, please?”

“Hmm. I suppose I might.” His fingers prodded at Crowley again. “Although I don’t know if I’m quite in the mood for this.”

“Master…” It was a pleading whine, and Aziraphale chuckled.

“You do beg prettily.” His hand dipped then, fingers trailing down Crowley’s perineum and then hand cupping his balls. “I’ll tell you what I’m in the mood for, pet. I’m in the mood for something a bit more feminine. Why don’t you get rid of these,” his hand squeezed Crowley’s balls, “and then I’ll oblige you. That’s a good girl.”

Crowley sucked in a breath. “Y-yes, master,” he stammered, gathering his will to change himself as his master demanded. He didn’t mind having a vulva, of course. He rather liked being feminine when he felt in the mood. So it wasn’t as though the order were some kind of humiliation. And yet there was something powerful about having his master command Crowley to change his body simply to suit the angel’s whims.

His will took hold, and the balls that Aziraphale had been squeezing melted away, Crowley’s cock vanishing too, replaced with feminine folds that were already dripping with arousal. Aziraphale immediately rubbed over them, dampening his fingers throughly, and making Crowley gasp with pleasure.

“Master!”

“_Such_ a good girl. Do you want me, pet?”

“Yes,” moaned Crowley helplessly. “Please.”

“Up you get then, and over the couch arm,” ordered Aziraphale firmly.

Crowley scrambled up from his lap, and nearly tripped, since his trousers were still tangled around his knees. He paused to pull them off, but Aziraphale snapped his fingers. “No sidetracks, bend over now.”

“Yes, master,” said Crowley, shivering at the command in the angel’s tone. If he hadn’t already been aroused to the point of edging, he would have been brought there just by the sound of Aziraphale’s voice. He shuffled awkwardly around to bend over the arm of the couch. It was a familiar position, and one of his favorites, truth be told. The couch arm was just high enough to brace his hips in the air at the right height, and he rested his elbows and forearms on the cushions below, the position odd but not uncomfortable.

Aziraphale got up from the couch with an almost leisurely attitude, and strolled around to stand behind Crowley, reaching out to knead his abused ass again. Crowley whimpered. “Master… Please…”

“Please what?” Aziraphale’s voice held an amused smirk that Crowley didn’t have to look back to see.

“Please take me. Please use me. Please fill me. Oh master, please!”

Aziraphale chuckled. “So eager. I approve.” He started undoing his belt and trousers. Crowley waited, panting, filled with an aching need. He felt incredibly aroused just thinking about what it would feel like to have Aziraphale’s cock filling him.

The angel pulled his cock out, not bothering to undress, and pushed it between Crowley’s legs, teasing him, nudging at him. Crowley moaned and put his feet further apart, lifting and wiggling his hips, pushing back to Aziraphale.

“Such a good little slut, so willing to please her master.” Aziraphale took his cock in his hand, shifting, lining himself up. Crowley held his breath as he felt the head of the angel’s cock, hot and hard, against him. Then it was pushing into his wetness, filling him up so amazingly, so perfectly, that when Aziraphale hilted, grinding deep within him, Crowley was on the edge of orgasm already.

Masturbating with these parts was a fiddly thing, requiring a lot of attention to his clit, and sometimes even needing a vibrator to actually get off, but mind and body were tied in strange and intimate ways, and the way he felt, the things he thought about his wonderful, perfect, angelic master somehow made it impossibly easy to find his pleasure. He thought, sometimes, that when he was wound up like this he could probably come just from the sound of Aziraphale’s voice, if only he was ordered to.

Aziraphale gripped Crowley’s hips and began to thrust, moving in slow, steady strokes at first. Crowley shuddered and clenched hard on the angel’s cock, his mind on fire with pure bliss. The feel of its hard length filling him was so wonderful, so perfect. It was different from the stretching burn of being taken anally, but no less good, no less intense.

“Mmm. Such a good girl. Such a good little slut.” Aziraphale increased the pace and force of his thrusting, and Crowley cried out, gripping the arm of the couch as the angel pushed him hard against it. It was too amazing, too much; the feeling of Aziraphale’s cock bottoming out in him, the sound of his voice praising him, the knowledge of how much pleasure he was bringing his master, all became too much and with a sudden shudder he came hard, inner walls twitching and clenching around Aziraphale’s cock.

Aziraphale couldn’t help but know when Crowley came, for he could not only hear the stutter in Crowley’s breath, feel the pulses around his cock, he also saw the smoldering glow ignite around him as Crowley’s demonic power tried to set the couch on fire. Aziraphale had long since miraculously fireproofed it, though, so he could ignore that and instead slow his strokes, keeping them deep and powerful, but no longer quite so frantic, the steady thrust of his cock within pushing Crowley through the orgasm.

When the final shudders were done and Crowley was panting beneath him, smoking ever so slightly, Aziraphale stopped. “Tisk. You seem to have come before your mast, pet. How disrespectful.”

“S-sorry, master,” said Crowley, feeling a strange mixture of genuine shame for having failed and illicit pleasure at Aziraphale’s further assertion of his dominance.

“No matter, it rather gives me the chance to try something I’ve been considering.” He rocked his hips, grinding against Crowley, who moaned, feeling pleasure immediately wash through him again. “Since you’re such a greedy little slut, so eager to come, I want you to come again, with me.”

“Yes, master,” said Crowley, with a hitch in his voice as Aziraphale thrust into him once more. Soon the angel had resumed his rapid, almost brutal pace, and Crowley was panting beneath him, caught up in it once more.

“Touch yourself, my pet. I’m getting close. I want you to come with me. Be a good girl.”

“Oh yes, master. Oh fuck. Oh yes,” groaned Crowley, managing to reach a hand under despite being pinned to the couch’s arm, and press two fingers against his clit. He dipped them lower for a moment, slicking them with his own juices, then moved them up again, stroking rapidly, gasping in desperate breaths as the pleasure built, and as he felt Aziraphale’s thrusts grow less controlled, more wild and primal, as he neared his own peak.

“Come on, pet. Come for me. I’m almost there. Just… A moment… Come for me…” Aziraphale’s voice was unsteady, his cock pounding into Crowley, and Crowley’s fingers were frantic, his whole body tensed, pussy clenching on the angel’s cock as he sought his peak.

“Ah, Crowley, yes!” gasped Aziraphale, plunging himself deep once more, body shuddering above Crowley, who cried out as he felt Aziraphale’s seed begin to fill him, and that was finally enough to push him over the edge again as well, a second orgasm sweeping over him, hazing his mind with pleasure, the glow of it flaring around him once more.

“Oh, master!”

Aziraphale thrust a few more times, almost lazily, as the last of his seed pumped out into Crowley, dribbling wetly over his thighs and onto the couch below. When he was done, though, he didn’t withdraw or let Crowley up. He stayed there, holding Crowley’s hips, and bent over to whisper in his ear. “Now, pet, let’s trying something I’ve been curious about for some time. I want you to come for me again, as soon as you possibly can, Raphael.”

Crowley sucked in a shocked breath as need slammed into him. Intense, burning desire swept over every inch of him, centered between his legs but seeming to burn through his veins. He was on edge again, instantly, tensing around Aziraphale’s cock still within him, and that was all it took, a third orgasm rocked him, even more intensely than the first two, making him cry out with wordless bliss and severely testing the limits of the couch’s fireproof nature.

“Good girl,” murmured Aziraphale, smugly.

“Fucking _fuck_,” said Crowley, between ragged breaths.

“Now, I’m quite genuinely curious how many times I can do that to you.” Aziraphale wiggled his hips, grinding his slowly softening cock into Crowley just a little deeper.

Crowley felt himself tense with an incredulity that was almost like fear. Again? He was already going to be unable to stand straight once Aziraphale let him up.

“Raphael, come for me.”

“F-f-fuck, master!” Another orgasm slammed into him, if anything even faster than last time. His body shuddered as it overwhelmed him, his nails digging into the worn upholstery beneath his hands, which was starting to smolder. 

“Fascinating.” Aziraphale gestured and the couch stopped smoking. “Let’s try this again, shall we? Raphael, _come_.”

“Ah!” Crowley was beyond words as the next orgasm hit him before the last had even finished. All he could do was writhe and shudder, inner walls twitching around Aziraphale’s cock. It was nearly pain as well as pleasure, his nerves so overloaded that it ached. His clit burned like fire, while literal flames licked over his body, and his cry was something very close to a scream.

“Getting a bit sensitive, my pet?”

“Fuck. Y-yes, master.” Crowley was panting hard, the words struggling out between breaths.

“Hmm. I suppose I could stop here. Three is a nice, significant sort of number. Then again so is seven. Or twelve, for that matter. Twelve is very pleasing.”

“Master, _please_,” whimpered Crowley, not even sure what he was begging for. The pleasure was turning into a torment, yet being tormented by his master was always so good. Did he want more, or was he begging for it to stop?

Aziraphale straightened, sliding his hands down Crowley’s back to give his ass one last grope, and then he stepped back, pulling free of the demon. “Tempting as that idea is, I’m feeling ready for a nice cuddle and another cup of tea.” He looked at Crowley, who was in the process of sliding off the couch arm to collapse in a smoking heap on the floor and chuckled. “Though it looks as though I’ll have to make my own tea, you seem to be all done in.”

Crowley’s only response was to lie even flatter on the floorboards and let out a low groan. His rather scorched trousers were still tangled around his ankles, and his thighs were sticky with his own fluids and with Aziraphale’s semen. He felt both amazing and exhausted, his mind an incoherent blur.

Aziraphale waved his hand, miracling the mess off of them both, though most of it had definitely ended up on Crowley, not on him. He did his trousers back up and said, “How are you feeling, my dear?”

Crowley managed to roll over onto his back, staring up at Aziraphale with dazed eyes. “Fuck.”

The angel laughed. “I should have you make a pussy for me more often. Though I am also quite curious about what would happen if I tried that on you with a cock.”

“I’d discorporate,” said Crowley dazedly. “But what a way to go.”

Aziraphale only laughed again. “Get yourself together and up on the couch, dearest, while I go put the kettle on.”

“Yes, master.”

By the time Aziraphale came back with two cups of tea Crowley was at least clothed and upright on the couch, though only for a given value of “upright”, since he was sprawled untidily against the arm of it. His eyes were unfocused, his thoughts still hazed by all that had just been done to him.

Aziraphale perched beside him and held out the cup of tea. Crowley took it with a grateful sigh and sipped. He wasn’t that big on tea, truly, but it was nice to have a cup while relaxing. Slowly the level in the cop dropped and slowly his mind returned to something like normal. Eventually he reached out and set the cup on a nearby bookshelf, then sprawled sideways to put his head in Aziraphale’s lap.

With a soft smile, Aziraphale began petting his hair. “How are you, my dear?”

“Good. Was very good. Maybe too good, though.”

“Hmm?”

“You start making me come like that every time, dunno if I’ll even be able to come without it.”

“Ah. I see.” Aziraphale chuckled. “I shall save it for special occasions, in that case. Though it truly is tempting to see what I’d do to you if I made you come a dozen or so times in a row.”

“Hah. Sadist.”

“And you love me for it.”

Crowley smiled up at Aziraphale. “Well, yeah.”

“I love you too,” said Aziraphale, and for a long time after that there was a comfortable silence between them as the angel stroked the demon’s hair.

After quite some time, Aziraphale said, “I believe you said you would stay the night, dearest?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” Staying the night at the bookshop didn’t mean sleeping, since Aziraphale still stubbornly refused to get a bed, but it did mean spending the night together, reading companionably, cuddling on the ancient but miraculously comfortable couch, and perhaps having a drink or two as they wiled away the night together.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Crowley, sitting up finally. “I’d meant to stow some things over here. They’re out in the Bentley. Got a bit, ah, distracted what with all the star-creating and, you know.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows quirked upwards. “I do know, I suppose. Moving in then, are you my dear?”

“Well, not as such. I’ve still got a better bed.” He grinned. “Since I have a bed at all. But it’s nice to not have to miracle up clean socks and so on when I do end up staying the night here.”

“It’s not usually the socks you get dirty,” said Aziraphale, delivering the innuendo with an almost cheerful slyness.

“Angel…” Crowley was no longer shocked by Aziraphale's occasional crudity, but his cheeks were flaming all the same.

“Go get your spare socks. I’ll be here when you come back,” said Aziraphale, still looking cheerful, and Crowley rolled his eyes, but pried himself up off the couch and headed for the door. Aziraphale rose too, no doubt to putter about the shop, tidying books according to his own arcane system. 

Crowley was rummaging around in the back seat when he felt a distinct flash of hellish energy, a demonic miracle taking place somewhere very close to him. He didn’t have time to be properly alarmed by that, though, before the Bentley and himself in it was engulfed in a massive ball of flame.

The feel of the flames licking around him was familiar, comfortable even. Brimstone. Demonic fire that could do him no harm whatsoever. It could, however, burn his Bentley to a crisp, so Crowley’s first response was to slam out of the car and look around for the culprits, teeth bared in a hideous snarl.

He caught sight of a knot of dark figures, but his gaze also caught Aziraphale coming out of the bookshop in a rush, glowing with a terrible light that gave tangible meaning to all the bits in scripture about angels needing to say “Fear not” when they encountered humans. He didn’t need a flaming sword, he was fiery himself, blazing with righteous fury.

His wings were out again, dark-silver shining, rainbows shimmering over them in the heavenly glow of him, and he went straight through the towering inferno over the Bentley as he launched himself at the little clutch of demons no doubt responsible for setting it on fire.

It harmed him not at all. Nor did it harm Crowley as he stood within the flickering flames, feeling entirely superfluous. He set about doing his best to quench the fire, though he was sure the car was already ruined. Aziraphale definitely had this well in hand, for the little trio of demons scattered in complete and utter terror before his holy flame.

They went in three different directions, and rather than chase any one of them, Aziraphale circled back to where Crowley was just getting the last flicking tongues of hellfire to still over the charred shell of his beloved car.

“Oh Crowley, oh dear, oh I’m so sorry,” said Aziraphale, landing beside the smoldering hulk, folding his wings in to vanish neatly.

“God fucking _damn_,” swore Crowley, so overcome that he’d forgotten he wasn’t swearing by God or by Hell anymore. The Bentley had made it through the fucking Apocalypse and now it had been torched by some bunch of two-bit demons doing who knew what pointless nonsense. Why would they even try to use brimstone on him? That made no sense whatsoever, they had to know it wouldn’t hurt him.

Aziraphale, though, had a rather thoughtful expression on his face suddenly. “Let me try something.” He reached out and touched the Bentley, laying a hand almost tenderly on hot metal, which was pinging and ticking as the scorched car cooled. A faint, warping shimmer went over the whole car, and then it was standing there in perfect condition, not a scratch on it. (Somewhere up in heaven, Radueriel got another miracle notification, which he steadfastly ignored completely. If he’d looked, he’d have found it was labeled with the number nine, which would have startled him considerably, since mere Principalities should not be capable of single-digit miracles.) 

“Oh, how pleasing!” exclaimed Aziraphale. “It worked!”

Crowley blinked at him. “How did you do that? And won’t you get in trouble with Heaven for frivolous miracles again?”

“They get more annoyed at the small ones than the big ones, darling,” said Aziraphale, almost absently, “and given how often I’ve been doing those over the last year or so, I don’t think they’re tracking them right now. But it wasn’t as large a miracle as it looked, I didn’t actually fix the car, there’s too many pieces. I just told it that it was about fifteen minutes younger than it is.”

“Huh?”

“I noticed you mucking about with space in quite interesting ways on the way back from your star. I was a bit too excited on the way out, but I saw what you did about speed and distance when we came back. Time is quite the same thing as space, you know, so I thought I’d try just fiddling with time a little.”

Crowley felt a little shiver go through him. “Angel, if we start messing with time travel…”

“Oh, nothing so crass as time _travel_, I assure you. I just sort of snipped a few minutes out of the Bentley’s existence. I can put them back if you’re really worried, but then it’ll be ruined again.”

“No, no, this is fine.” Crowley smiled. “Thank you, angel.”

“You’re more than welcome, dearest. And I got to thwart those ridiculous demons too, undoing what they did.” Aziraphale frowned faintly. “At least I assume ruining your car was the point. It’s the kind of petty nastiness I could believe of demons, and they can’t have meant to hurt you, given that was brimstone.”

“Unless they meant to hurt _you_,” said Crowley, giving voice to a deeper fear. If Hell was out for Aziraphale…

“Then they’d have lit the bookshop on fire, and not your car. It’s not as if anyone could mistake you for me, dear.” Aziraphale smiled.

“I suppose. Something about this doesn’t sit right, though. I don’t know…” Hell could indeed be both nasty and petty, but in order to hurt him by going after the Bentley they’d have to understand what the car meant to him, and he wasn’t sure they were fully capable of that. Demons just didn’t get Earthly pleasures like driving, or owning interesting and rare things. If it didn’t fall into a category of classic vice, they weren’t up to speed.

“Why don’t you come inside,” said Aziraphale. “I’ll make us a cup of tea,” he added, willfully ignoring the fact that they’d just had one. He was more than British enough to offer tea for all ills, regardless of the amount of tea already consumed in a given day.

“I think I'd like something a bit stronger,” said Crowley, and even once he was again snuggled up against Aziraphale’s side on the angel’s comfortable old couch, some part of his mind was still worrying over the problem of just what exactly Hell had been up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Managed to post this chapter without any formatting, somehow. (Should be fixed now.)
> 
> Have one of my favorite bits before I go camping for the week! :D


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beelzebub has a bad day.

Beelzebub, who had indeed deliberately sent Crowley to Italy repeatedly during the early sixteenth century, was having a remarkably bad day. One did not exactly have _good_ days in Hell, but sometimes there were days they very much enjoyed, days when inferiors abased themselves in particularly amusing ways, or some power-play amongst the other Lord of Hell paid off, or something else went their way.

Today things were not going their way at all.

The day had begun by being generally irritating, their flies had been agitated and cranky from the start, and then the news about Crowley’s “little” miracle had come in, and that had sent everything sliding further downhill. Certainly it provided useful information, namely that Crowley did still have all that vast and ever-so-useful power, but it also showed that he was _using_ it, which probably meant that he knew about it now, somehow.

Hell had always been able to keep him in the dark about just what he was capable of, before. It was easier to use people who didn’t know who they truly were. That was as true of demons as it was of humans. Beelzebub had just gotten calm enough about that news to consider arranging another meeting with Dagon and Hastur when the next bit of news arrived. Not only had Crowley found out about his power, but somehow that angel he insisted on consorting with, that ridiculous little Principality, had run off three demons with holy fire. And had flown through brimstone to do it, though that ability wasn’t entirely news.

It was frustrating, though. Beelzebub had been nearly certain the pair had gone native, and if not that then they’d pulled some kind of trick, given each other some kind of temporary aid. But now the demon had proved it wasn’t mere humanity that made him immune to holy water, and the angel had proved immune to brimstone when caught flat-footed, and that meant the whatever it was that made them impossibly invulnerable was permanent.

They had not been seriously considering another attempt at using holy water on Crowley, but having it off the table entirely was annoying. Their options were looking narrower all the time, and Beelzebub didn’t like that. Part of staying on top of the heap down in Hell was keeping your options open. Now they had only one or two possible gambits left, and they didn’t much like the look of them.

“Get out of here,” they said, kicking the imp who’d brought the latest news. “And go get Hazztur and Dagon.” Bellzebub would prefer to deal with this themself, truth be told, and claim all the power and glory of bringing Crowley back into the fold, but there was going to be danger and perhaps blame to go around, so better that the burden be shared.

Whatever the risks, though, one way or another Beelzebub _was_ going to drag Crowley back down to Hell and remind him of his proper place beneath their heel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from the howling wilderness! Quick, short interlude chapter tonight, longer, proper chapter with some _fun_ stuff in it tomorrow. :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is hit over the head by a demon with a crowbar for the second time, and the BAMF tags get earned.

Film and fiction often portray being hit over the head hard enough to render one unconscious as a bit of a lark, just a headache on waking hours later, much overshadowed by the inevitable predicament one wakes in. This is entirely unlike reality, where hits over the head can cause concussions and long-term damage even when only momentarily stunning, and blacking out for more than a brief moment means the person who’s been hit is probably not going to be waking up at all.

But angels and demons, though occupying bodies that closely mimic the human form, operate them somewhat differently, and can survive situations that would be quite fatal to a normal human. This has to do with their bodies being formed as much of will as of physical flesh, though it’s not obvious in the everyday operation.

Being an angel was why Aziraphale had survived the first time a demon hit him over the head with a crowbar. Since he was still—probably—an angel, or at least an aetheric being inhabiting a body only nominally made of flesh and blood, it was also why he survived the second time as well.

He woke in a suspiciously familiar darkness, with a sense of mingled alarm about what had happened and disappointment that he wouldn’t be finishing his sushi luncheon. He’d ordered the omakase, and had been quite looking forward to seeing what his favorite chef would produce for him today.

Now he was sitting on a dank floor with an annoying headache, and his hands were chained together in front of him, while the air around smelled of a peculiar mix of mildew and sulfur. He’d only smelled it the once, but one didn’t forget a scent like that. It seemed things had rather gone to hell. Literally.

He found himself feeling irritated and indignant. Under other circumstances perhaps he might have felt fear, but he’d been here before, and it had been just as idiotic then. This must be some attempt by the lords of Hell to bring Crowley to heel, which was plainly absurd. They didn’t actually need what Crowley had been doing for him, the Arrangement meant that was effectively “nothing” and yet they were going to all this length to get him back all the same. Or perhaps they were after revenge again, which was even more useless and futile. Killing Crowley would accomplish even less than returning him to service. That was if they were even capable of doing so, now that Crowley was genuinely immune to holy water, a thought that comforted Aziraphale quite a lot. He himself had just proved immune to brimstone yesterday, which was also quite comforting. This whole mess was downright ridiculous, though. He’d seen Beelzebub personally say that Hell would be leaving Crowley alone, though of course he’d been wearing Crowley’s body at the time. He supposed that demons breaking promises shouldn’t be shocking, but really, this was so _pointless_. Why couldn’t the demons just leave well enough alone?

And he had been so looking forward to the sushi!

A door opened, and the flickering white light of a failing fluorescent bulb leaked in, showing that the room where he sat was barely a closet. It showed too that his wrists were circled with heavy manacles, etched with patterns of ancient runes. They were bindings, though less profound ones than the binding circle he’d used on Crowley.

Standing framed by the light, and with the buzz of their flies echoing the annoying buzz of the failing bulb was Beelzebub.

“Azzzzzirphale,” they said.

Aziraphale got to his feet and dusted himself off as best he could, finishing by straightening his bowtie. “Beelzebub. I’m afraid I cannot say that it’s a pleasure.”

They smiled a very nasty sort of smile. “I can, zzinzze now that I have you, I have the leverage to bring our little lozzt sheep back into the fold onzze more.”

“You are making a grave mistake here,” said Aziraphale. “If you let me go, I can promise that Crowley will leave you be. If you don’t, though, he’s going to be very cross.”

“I do not care if he is _crozzzzz_. I only care that he learnzz his plazze, and returnzz to it.”

“Look, the kind of work he’s always done for you is the kind of work he does because he likes it. Because he’s good at it. You can’t compel that sort of work from somebody.” Aziraphale knew that the argument would go nowhere, but he couldn’t help himself. This was all so _stupid!_

“I can compel what I want, which is obedienzzze. I do not actually give a damn about hizzzz level of performanzze.”

“You want his power,” said Aziraphale flatly.

Beelzebub looked surprised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” they said, dismissively.

“He knows what he has now, you know.”

Beelzebub gave Aziraphale a long, level look. Then they shrugged. “That izzz of no conzzequenzze.” 

Aziraphale frowned. “He knows that he’s been lied to and deceived. He’s not at all pleased with you just now.”

That got a snort of laughter from the diminutive prince of Hell. “We are demonzz. Of courzzze he hazz been dezzzeived. What did he think we were? He can take pride, the one who firzzt told him the lie that he had lozzzt what he onzzze had was the Great Dezzzeiver himzzelf!”

“He’s not going to take being lied to anymore. And he has enough power to cause you quite a lot of trouble, now that he knows it.”

“Ah, but I have _you_.” Beelzebub’s grin was positively smug. “Your power izz bound, zzo you are quite helplezz to prevent me from doing anything at all to you. Crowley knowzzz the torturezzz on offer here. Zzo Crowley will return, and zzubject himself to zzertain thingzz that will enzzure his loyalty to me perzzzonally, and take up hizz work again, and everything will be juzzt as it wazz, juzzt the way it should be. I’ll even let you go, after.”

“Didn’t you just finished telling me that demons are deceivers? I’m hardly going to trust any such promise from you.”

Beelzebub laughed. “It doezz not matter. A chanzze to zzet you free unharmed, or the zzertainty that you will zzzuffer. Crowley will take the chanzze, he hazz no other choizze.”

The frustration that had been building in Aziraphale all this time seemed to come to a boil. He remembered smiting the demons who’d set fire to the Bentley yesterday, and began to summon that same holy glow, but instead of radiant power, pain shocked through him, centered on his wrists, and he saw the runes there flicker with light.

Beelzebub smirked at Aziraphale. “I zzaid your power wazz bound, angel. You can’t zzummon holinezzz while thozze chainzz remain on you. Only demonic power can touch them and I zzertainly won’t be removing them.”

Aziraphale glared at the prince of hell. He should have felt fear, he knew, but still all he felt was anger, and the boil began to _really_ roll as he thought about what Beelzebub was trying to do. They were trying to reduce Crowley to a miserable life of servitude, something that was all the more horrific for the way it was a twisted perversion of the sort of beautiful submission that Crowley had willingly gifted him.

As his anger rose, he felt the black power that was always at the back of his mind now rising too, responding to that anger, and a sudden smile crossed his face as realization settled into place in his mind. It was a smile Crowley might have recognized, though few others would have seen it, for it was a smile of nearly sadistic enjoyment.

He snapped his wings into existence, rainbow-sheened and dark, and he felt a black halo gathering behind his head. “So these chains here,” he said brightly, rattling the manacles around his wrists, “these bind _holy_ power, you said?”

****

Crowley tore down the stairs of his apartment building because he was far too agitated to stand still in the elevator.

He had been having a lovely afternoon nap after terrifying his plants when he’d woken suddenly with a deep sense of fear and dread. Something was wrong. Something was missing. Something that should be there had vanished somehow, and his stomach was knotted with terror at the thought that he wouldn’t get it back.

It seemed like waking into a nightmare, though when he looked around the room everything was just as it should be. The sense of wrongness lingered with him, but he didn’t know what it was. Nothing was _actually_ wrong, so why did it feel like he’d just been hit over the head and then had…something ripped out of his soul?

He turned his attention inward, looking for the missing something, and understanding came, bringing terror with it.

_Aziraphale._

Crowley’s horrified panic calmed somewhat when he realized that he could still sense the angel’s grace somewhere, it was only that the sense was thin and faint. As if Aziraphale was infinitely far away. As if… Had Heaven recalled him after all? Panic threatened to come back. They might try to kill him again, and they hadn’t swapped bodies this time. A wave of relief followed that thought, though. Aziraphale was immune to brimstone without needing Crowley now.

The roller-coaster ride of his feelings dove back down towards panic when the television on the wall suddenly switched itself on, and a familiar face appeared there. Aziraphale had not been recalled to Heaven. Not Heaven at all.

“Hello there Crowley.” Hastur smiled smugly from the screen.

“Why Hastur. Why so distant? Don’t want to visit again? I can’t imagine why not, your last visit here was so pleasant.” Crowley was threatening Hastur, and the duke of Hell knew it, but his smile only broadened.

“It is nice to have guests, true. That’s why we’ve invited that angel you seem so unnaturally fond of over for a little visit. Come down to Hell all quiet and polite and contrite and he’ll be just fine. But if you don’t…” Hastur’s smile grew positively feral, and then the screen went black.

Crowley spent five whole minutes digging up every curse word he could think of in every language he’d ever spoken. Then he grabbed his keys and sprinted out of the apartment, tearing down the stairs two and three at a time.

Fear was uppermost when he began to trip to the Gates of Hell, but as he gripped the Bentley’s wheel and swerved through traffic, anger began to rise with it. He’d been perfectly content to leave Hell alone, and let them leave him alone. He hadn’t interfered, hadn’t caused trouble, despite finding that he had enough power to claim a place as a prince of Hell himself if he wanted to. Hell could have let things be, just let the status quo continue, and Crowley would even have kept doing his little temptations, his petty annoyance of thousands via phone systems, his invention of minor irritations that took humans a step or two further towards damnation. He was proud of that work! But no, they hadn’t been content to let him benefit them at a distance, they had to try to force him to bend the knee by threatening the one truly good and worthy thing in all of Heaven or Hell.

They had to try to take Aziraphale, his angel, his love, his master, away from him.

Crowley found he was baring his teeth, some of them a little sharper than they normally were, as he pulled up to park in slapdash fashion at the curb in front of the London Gate.

He stalked across and through the mirror-finished pavement and onto the mirrored, downward-leading escalator to Hell with his wings folding open behind him, his eyes flashing with an anger that nearly glowed through his shades.

So somebody down in Hell thought he’d tamely submit to them, just because they threatened Aziraphale?

By the time he’d reached the bottom of the escalator and the Gates of Hell proper, he could sense the grace blossoming at the back of his mind. Aziraphale was here. There was no sense of fear with the holy power that flushed through him, though, only an anger that added to the rage that already filled him. 

Rage was the only word that truly encapsulated what Crowley felt, and even that might not be sufficient. He was angry beyond all rational reaction. How _dare_ the demons of Hell try to harm his master? How dare they try to suck him back into servitude? And how dare they lie to him in the first place! How dare they let him think he’d lost all he’d once had as an angel? How dare they use him for their own petty ends! How dare they make him think he was the least and weakest of them, and keep him under their heel? The Almighty had cast him aside, Hell had used him, and only Aziraphale had ever given a scrap of a damn about him, and now Hell dared to threaten him?

No.

They were not getting away with this. They might have Aziraphale, but the angel didn’t seem to be afraid of them, and with something like shock Crowley realized he wasn’t afraid of them either. He’d spent so much time worrying about Hell, fearing being in trouble, fretting about what Beelzebub would do to him if they found out about his many failures, but they had no power over him anymore, did they? Hell had never had any real power over him at all, it had all been only lies.

He pulled his own vast power out through the flush of Aziraphale’s grace, as he had when making his new star, suffusing it with that glory, and wreathed himself with holy fire, a searing halo of golden flame bursting into existence behind his head, sending rainbow shimmers cascading over the dark silver feathers of his wings.

The halo’s burning light starkly showed every ugly detail of the demons who guarded the Gates of Hell, seated at their grimy desks with their piles of incomprehensible paperwork in triplicate that were the first of Hell’s torments for the damned.

One of the pair had already ducked behind his desk, but the other actually opened her mouth and said, “No angels allowed here.”

Crowley’s eyes fixed on her, and he snarled, “I’m not a bloody angel.” He flexed his dark wings in emphasis as he said it. “But there’s one down here already and I’m going to retrieve him. Don’t get in my way.”

The demon opened her mouth as if to raise some objection, and Crowley exploded her desk, showering her with shards of flaming wooden shrapnel. She was thrown back out of her chair onto the mildewed floor, where she sat staring in shock, making no move to stop Crowley as he stalked through the Gates and into the corridors of Hell. 

Hell was a maze, but Crowley knew roughly where to go, for there was a sense of direction to his feel of Aziraphale’s grace, along with the sense of the angel’s anger and the warm power of the grace itself. That warmth mingled easily with his rage, and with a laugh Crowley realized that for the first time in his life he was feeling righteous anger.

Damn right it was righteous. Whatever beef Hell had with Crowley, nobody down here had any right to involve Aziraphale in their nonsense!

Feeling almost high on anger, glory, and freedom from the lies that had held him unwillingly bound, Crowley strode forward, scattering demons left and right as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had too much fun writing this one. Again. This whole story has been a ball, tbh. :D Also Beez's dialogue really upsets my spellcheck.


	10. Chapter 10

Beelzebub’s hands shook as they knelt on the cold floor of the room that had been meant for Crowley’s doom and tried to draw the chalk across it. Terror still pulsed through their veins at the close call they’d had. Hastur had been right. The unnatural pair hadn’t gone native on Earth, and hadn’t merely pulled a trick, they’d blended their powers somehow.

They could still hear the echo of the sound of manacles shattering into a thousand pieces, and could feel the burn of holy fire that had brushed them before they could gather their wits enough to miracle an escape. Their skin was still red from it, as from sunburn, one more irritation among far too many, and they’d lost several of their flies.

Now they were frantically trying to finish a ritual circle before the pair of impossible beings now rampaging through Hell brought the whole place down, or worse, woke up His Infernal Majesty from his long sleep. Satan had been grumpy enough about the canceled apocalypse, being woken again not even two years later would result in truly dire things happening, and while Beelzebub would love to see said dire things happen to the demon and angel responsible, shit flowed downhill, and Satan’s wrath was very likely to fall on them as well, as foremost of the princes of Hell.

If they had only finished the ritual circle first, bless it! But they’d thought Crowley would come along to it tamely, and they’d have plenty of time to put the finishing touches on, hopefully while the humbled demon watched with horrified comprehension of what was about to happen to him.

Instead they had to scramble to complete it quickly, before everything fell apart completely.

Dagon was on the other side of the circle, filling in those unwholesome runes that she knew best, and they were almost finished, but the distant sounds of demons screaming in panic had been joined by explosions now, and the risk that Satan would wake ever more likely. They didn’t have much time left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today, aren't you lucky? (I couldn't just post this one, it was way too short. The next one is shortish too, but hopefully worth it.)
> 
> P.S. Just a reminder that if you want to chat about writing and life in general with me, my [Discord server](https://discord.gg/cz4mjDT) is open to anybody 18 and up.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The climax of the story, but not the climax, if you know what I mean.

Aziraphale was almost having fun.

He had used demonic power to shatter the manacles holding him bound, and that had freed his glory, so now he was radiating pure holiness, and the mere sight of him was sending demons scrambling away in terror. There was something extremely satisfying about that.

Satisfaction gave way to frustration for a while as he wandered the tangled corridors of Hell with no idea of how to get out. Eventually he’d realized that there was a tug associated with his demonic power, and a sense of a familiar presence, which seemed quite angry. Crowley, it must be. Attempting to make his way towards that tug, though, added to Aziraphale’s frustrations at first. The corridors never ran in the right direction, so he was constantly having to double back, to move at angles or even directly away from his goal.

When he finally snapped and blasted his way through a wall, though, that was then he started really enjoying himself.

He was still in Hell, separated from Crowley, and Beelzebub was no doubt lurking around somewhere, but he was also blowing holes in walls and scattering demons as he strode through, and it was impossible to not have at least a little bit of fun doing it.

The angel blew up yet another wall, and as he stepped into the empty corridor beyond he heard another explosion and saw a scatter of debris shower the hall from a few meters further along. Moments later a tall, lanky form, backed by a pair of dark silver wings and with his hands glowing with golden fire, stepped out into the corridor.

“Crowley!” said Aziraphale, his heart soaring.

“Well hello there angel, fancy meeting you here.” Crowley put out the fire around his hands, and Aziraphale extinguished a very similar glow he’d been holding himself. Crowley leaned against one grimy wall with mock-casualness. “Well, angel, think we should get out of here?”

“I rather think we should, though I’ve been having some difficulty finding my way. Bit of a maze, rather.”

“Well, I’ve left something of a trail towards the exit,” drawled Crowley, gesturing behind him.

Aziraphale laughed, then couldn’t resist any longer and stepped forward to sweep up Crowley in a tight hug. “Oh my dearest Crowley. Are you alright? They haven’t hurt you?”

“I’m fine, angel. I should be asking you that. You’re alright too?”

“Not a scratch on me. Well, other than being hit over the head with a crowbar. That makes twice now! _That_ was not at all pleasant. But I’m fine. Beelzebub tried to bind me by binding holy power.” He couldn’t resist the chuckle that escaped him. “That did not at all go according to plan.”

Crowley’s answering laugh was a little shaky, and his grip on Aziraphale was tight enough to make the angel’s ribs creak, but he didn’t mind at all. “My pet,” he murmured.

“Master,” said Crowley, and tucked his head down against Aziraphale’s chest. “I thought you were _gone_,” he said into the fabric of his waistcoat, suddenly trembling. “I thought you were gone and I’d never see you again. But I felt that I still had grace, that you were still out there somewhere. And then I realized that they couldn’t hold me anymore, that they never could, it was all just a lie. They can’t keep me here now.”

“No they can’t. You don’t belong to Hell anymore, my pet, you belong to me. Always.”

“Yours, master, always.”

“Now let’s—” Aziraphale was interrupted by the strange sensation of Crowley somehow wavering in his grip. The demon began to turn transparent, fading away. Suddenly filled with alarm, Aziraphale held him tightly, physically and magically, and managed enough of a magical grip that he was pulled along as Crowley was drawn elsewhere.

The pair appeared at the center of a ritual circle. Crowley stumbled, going to his knees, and Aziraphale nearly fell as well, but braced himself on the demon’s shoulder. They both looked around, blinking in confusion, and immediately saw Beelzebub, with Dagon at their shoulder, standing just outside of the circle.

“Why can nothing go right lately?” spat the demon, staring at the pair of them. Beelzebub gave Dagon a glare. “The zzzircle was only zzuppozzed to zzzzummon that one.” She pointed at Crowley.

“His name is the only name in it,” muttered Dagon. “Don’t ask me.”

Beelzebub bared their teeth, but turned back to the pair at the circle’s center. “You have lozzzt, Crowley. Or should I zzzay Raphael? Your doom izz at hand now, and you will zzoon be kneeling at my feet.”

Crowley, who _was_ kneeling, but at the moment more arguably at Aziraphale’s feet, stared in shock at the circle around him.

“This is…”

“A binding zzircle, yezz.”

Crowley shook his head. “So this is the mysterious punishment for demons who cross Beelzebub. No wonder nobody who’d suffered it would ever speak of it, you must have bound them not to. And that means you have access to all their power. In fact…” Crowley gave Beelzebub a hard look. “Your rise to power in Hell started about the time humans invented this demon-binding business. Well, well, well.”

“That izz all quite immaterial. I only wish I’d bound you zzooner, it would have zzaved everyone a great deal of trouble.”

“Why didn’t you, then? You’ve always known the name to use.” 

Aziraphale remained silent as the two demons spoke. He was rather curious about all this himself. Though he was putting a great deal of mental energy into not smiling too much just yet. The circle was a very familiar one, since it was identical to the one he’d scribed on his own floor not so long ago. He knew a few things about circles like this, and the fear that had gripped him as Crowley vanished was now evaporating.

“You alwayzz were one of Hizz Infernal Majezzty’s favoritezz,” said Beelzebub with a sneer. “He zzaid handzz off the onezzz he liked.”

Crowley blinked. “So he knows you’ve been cheating?”

“We are _demonzzzzz_, you imbezzzile! There izz no cheating, there izz only winning. There izz only power. And your power izz about to be mine at last. He’zz not zzo fond of you after all that buzzzzinezzz with hizz zzon, you know.” Beelzebub’s grin was broad and gloating.

“Yes, you have rather got me in a bit of a pickle.” Crowley was suddenly grinning back, which made Beelzelbub’s smile falter. “It’s a very familiar pickle, in fact. Why, I was in a circle just like this not that long ago.” He looked up at Aziraphale, who finally couldn’t hold his smile back either, and met Crowley’s grin with one of his own. “Tell me, _master_, can the same demon be bound by two different people? You’re something of an expert on circles like this, after all.”

There was an expression of dawning horror on Beelzebub’s face, while Aziraphale’s expression was positively seraphic as he responded, “Why no, my slave, a demon can only be bound once. The binding ends when the demon is released, or when its master dies. Given that I’m rather immortal, though, and I have no intention of releasing you, well, I’m afraid that your former colleague here has wasted quite a lot of time with their chalk. Speaking of which…” Aziraphale drew the toe of one tan loafer over the nearest chalk line, erasing it, and the subtle pressure holding Crowley in place vanished like a popped soap bubble.

Crowley got to his feet, slowly dusted off his clothing, and spread and re-folded his wings, quite deliberately. Beelzelbub glared at him, teeth gritted. Crowley sauntered across the now-ruined ritual circle to stand looking down at Beelzelbub from only a few feet away.

“Now, you have some options, your highness. One, you can keep on trying to trap me here, and I can start wrecking Hell again. I’m sure my master would be happy to help me, too. I imagine we could make quite a mess. Certainly we’d have a jolly old time of it. Two, you can wake up Satan and let him deal with this, which will no doubt go just peachy for you. Admittedly I don’t think I could take him, but I’d cause him some trouble, I assure you, so you’d be in hot water afterward. Or three, you can let my master and I go back to Earth, and we’ll all pretend this never happened.”

Crowley’s smirk vanished and his face hardened. “And let me tell you, your highness, I’m only offering you options because Aziraphale is mostly unharmed. If you’d done him any real damage we wouldn’t be talking, I’d be doing my best to kill you. Not discorporate, not inconvenience, not take your place in a power struggle, _kill_. Which is also what I’ll be doing if I hear the tiniest peep out of anybody from Hell in the next thousand years.” He flared his wings out again, and mingled gold and black fire ran along the edges of each feather.

Beelzelbub let out a squeak of terror.

Aziraphale tried very hard not to laugh at the sound, and almost succeeded.

Dagon tried to blend into the wall behind her, but Crowley gave her a look too, and bared his teeth in a half snarl, half grin that made her visibly flinch.

“Now, which of those options are you going to select, hmm?”

“Get out of my zzzzight,” buzzed Beelzebub, their expression twisted between rage and terror.

“Gladly,” said Crowley, stepping back with a smirk. He held out his arm to Aziraphale, as if to escort a lady, and the angel took it unselfconsciously.

“Shall we?” said Crowley. “I believe you know the way out from here?”

“I rather do, so let’s,” said Aziraphale, and arm in arm they walked out of Hell.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the climax of the story is over, it's time for the other kind of climax.

They ended up at Crowley’s apartment, mostly because he was in enough shock that he drove the Bentley there automatically. After they stepped inside he gave the television a long look, then snapped his fingers and sent it elsewhere. “Don’t watch that much TV anyway,” he muttered under his breath, and Aziraphale only smiled and squeezed his hand.

“Shall I make us a cup of tea?” the angel offered.

“You and your tea,” said Crowley.

“I’m not hearing a no,” was Aziraphale’s smiling reply, and Crowley just rolled his eyes. Aziraphale let go of his hand and headed for the kitchen. Crowley followed so close on his heels he was nearly treading on them. Aziraphale didn’t mind that at all, he didn’t want to let Crowley out of his sight either. He found his hands were shaking as he set about getting the kettle on, in a delayed reaction to what had just happened.

He and Crowley had blown up Hell. Or at least some portion of Hell. Crowley had threatened to fight Satan. Aziraphale had been hit over the head by a demon with a crowbar _twice_ now. The whole thing had been absurdly dangerous and possibly just plain absurd as well.

And what if Heaven noticed? Every explosion Aziraphale had caused had technically been a miracle. Heaven logged those. If they looked into what he’d actually been doing they’d see a series of “blew up wall in Hell” or something, and he’d be in _such_ trouble.

What would happen if he and Crowley had to blow up Heaven too? Hell didn’t have any other archangels besides Crowley, but Heaven had _six_ of them.

The kettle began to whistle, and he turned off the heat, but he when he went to lift it Aziraphale’s hands were sharking far too much to even think about pouring it. He set the kettle back down on the hob, finding that the rest of his body was shaking too.

Then Crowley’s arms folded around him, holding him tightly. “It’s alright,” the demon murmured.

“Is it, really?”

“Think so. You’re here. I’m here. Nobody’s imprisoned down in Hell. Nobody’s been discorporated.”

“But what if—”

“Master.” Crowley’s voice was soft, fervent, and his arms went tighter around Aziraphale. “No ‘what if’. Whatever happens, I won’t let anyone harm you.”

“But if Heaven… If Heaven comes after us someday too…”

“I won’t let anyone harm you,” repeated Crowley. “We’ll go off to Alpha Centauri if we have to. Or to the star I just made. It hasn’t got any planets yet, but I can fix that. I’ll make you a whole world of your own, away from them all, with everything you could ever want on it. It’ll have mountains made of crepes, forests with sushi trees, and rivers of good old wines, just for you.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale’s laugh was still a little shaky, but he leaned back into the demon’s embrace, feeling safe and sheltered by Crowley’s arms.

Crowley kissed the back of Aziraphale’s head. “A little shook up still, I take it?”

“You could say that.”

“Same here, to be honest. I know just how to relax, though, angel. Been a while since I gave you a good preening. Might be nice to check over your new wings. You could do mine after?”

Aziraphale melted further back into Crowley’s embrace with a sigh, something in him unwinding ever so slightly. “That sounds lovely.”

“Come on, then.” Crowley kissed the back of his head once more, then unfolded his arms and towed Aziraphale back to his bedroom.

“Down on the bed, off with the shirt, and out with the wings,” said Crowley firmly once they got there.

Aziraphale quirked his eyebrows upward. “I thought I was supposed to be giving the orders.”

“If you would, please, master,” said Crowley, his words sufficiently submissive, but his tone filled with a broad smirk, which was also visible on his face.

Aziraphale laughed, his tension unwinding a further fraction, and sat down on the bed. He pulled his jacket, waistcoat, and then shirt off with unaccustomed casualness, simply tossing them aside. Such things didn’t really matter that much, did they? Then he popped his wings into being, and took a moment to stare back over his shoulder at them.

He was still getting used to seeing a sweep of iridescent dark silver, rather than the pristine white they’d been for so many years. They’d been iridescent before, too, but it hardly showed against the white. Crowley’s had been much more colorful, the rainbow shimmer intense on all that black. His were out now as well, Aziraphale saw, just as gray as his own, though they were shaped and patterned differently.

Aziraphale’s had always been the short, broad wings of a small bird. A white dove, perhaps, or one of the songbirds. Pigeon wings, he thought now, looking at them. They were marked like pigeon wings too, each feather lighter towards the base and darker at the tip. Crowley’s were more solid in color, lighter overall, but the tips of them were barred with black, and they were longer, narrower; falcon’s wings rather than pigeon’s wings. A peregrine, perhaps, though no peregrine in history had ever been so sheened with rainbows.

Crowley settled on the bed behind him and stroked his fingers over Aziraphale’s wings, just running his hands lightly over the uppermost coverts for a while. Aziraphale sighed softly and spread his wings a little further, stretching them out to their full span, which nearly touched the walls of the spacious bedroom.

With a soft sigh, Crowley pressed a kiss between Aziraphale’s wings, and then set about setting the feathers to rights.

They were always in a bit of a state, Aziraphale wasn’t at all regular about grooming them, so they were untidy to begin with, but the rampage through Hell had made things even worse, and Crowley had quite a lot to do. He plucked the hopeless feathers out, sending little stings of pain through Aziraphale, but mostly he simply laid them straight, combing his fingers over the barbs to smooth them, and the gentle tugging was blissful. Even better than the physical pleasure was the way that wings were an expression of Aziraphale’s celestial nature, and having them touched and groomed was interacting with that nature, which sent a thrumming hum of pleasant energy through his entire being as Crowley did it.

Aziraphale wondered again just what exactly he was now. _Was_ it still a celestial nature? Celestial wings should be white, and his were not. Yet they weren’t demonic wings either. Just what were they now? What power was Crowley interacting with as he meticulously groomed and smoothed them?

The angel didn’t know. He didn’t even know if he was an angel anymore. Yet strangely he was fine with that. The uncertainty should have been a gnawing canker at the heart of him, but it just wasn’t. He was something different now, and Crowley was another such something different, the two of them together, and that was all Aziraphale needed. So long as Crowley was with him, Heaven, Hell, and even the Almighty herself could just sod off for all he cared.

Dangerous, thought, that. But his wings were already tarnished. He would survive if they burned black, he was sure.

No such thing happened, though. All that happened was the soothing sensation of Crowley setting all his feathers to rights, from the massive primaries to the tiniest of coverts. Aziraphale melted into it, letting his eyes close as the tension that had filled him uncoiled completely.

By the time Crowley had finished, Aziraphale was so relaxed he was half asleep. Crowley seemed content to let him drowse, too, he simply stayed where he was against Aziraphale’s back and slid his arms around the angel’s waist. Eventually, though, Aziraphale tugged himself from that embrace and stood. He stretched his wings wide one more time, then folded them in close. “Now it’s your turn, my dear. Shirt off, etc.” Aziraphale smiled at Crowley, who chuckled and shed not only his shirt but his trousers too, leaving himself in only his boxers, which were black silk today.

Aziraphale gave him an indulgent smile and sat behind him, reaching out to run his fingers over the soft feathers of Crowley’s wings. With that softness came an odd heat, the warmth that he had always assumed was related to hellfire, the warmth of Crowley’s infernal nature. Now, though, it seemed only like a part of Crowley, and no different, really, than his own celestial warmth. 

The feel of that softness and warmth under Aziraphale’s hands was good, but the soft sigh of relaxation that Crowley let out was better.

Setting all the feathers to rights was a slow, tedious sort of task, but Aziraphale found it almost as soothing to do as to have done to him. There was something meditative about carefully combing through the countless feathers, seeking the worst-damaged to pluck, pulling the barbs of the less damaged ones firmly through his fingers to re-seat them. Crowley had started a little pile of Aziraphale’s broken feathers on the bed, each one shading pale silver to dark pewter, and Aziraphale began adding Crowley’s to the pile, solid slate gray. It was mostly the smallest coverts, and a few of the bigger coverts, that needed plucking, none of the primaries or secondaries had been damaged enough to need pulled. They were big, sturdy things, the longest primary easily as long as his arm, and it took some work to zip up their barbs again where they’d been disarranged, but they were tough, and hadn’t broken.

A few of the feathers Aziraphale pulled out weren’t damaged, just naturally loose, ready to shed. Angels didn’t molt all at once, they molted a feather here and a feather there, like many birds did, so as to be always able to fly.

With an odd feeling of warmth, Aziraphale set aside one of the nicest of these, a large primary covert, longer than his hand, and in nearly perfect condition. He had the thought that it would make a truly fine pen. He didn’t often write with a quill these days, but he did like fountain pens, so he had ink on hand, and he certainly remembered how to cut and sharpen a quill.

He finished the last bit of grooming and then slid his arms around Crowley’s waist beneath his wings, pressing against his back and kissing the nape of his neck. Crowley made a soft, inarticulate sound and pushed back into Aziraphale’s embrace.

Something in that sound stirred a thread of desire in Aziraphale’s core, and as he began to let his hands wander over Crowley’s skin the thread bloomed rapidly into a rage furnace of want.

It was a very human thing, for a brush with danger to kindle the sex drive. Aziraphale wasn’t human, but he was just human enough, it seemed.

Not that it usually took much, when it came to Crowley.

Aziraphale pulled him back, settling the demon fully into his lap. It made things a bit awkward, given Crowley was taller, but it also let Aziraphale easily kiss the spot just between his wings, which sent a shiver he could feel through Crowley.

“Master,” murmured the demon, and he shifted, wiggling his rear in a way that was definitely not going to cool Aziraphale’s rising desire at all. Aziraphale made a soft sound of approval and let a hand slip down to grope at the front of Crowley’s boxers.

“My sweet pet. You want me, do you?”

“Always,” was Crowley’s breathless reply.

“Then you shall have me. I’ll take good care of you, love.” Aziraphale kissed between Crowley’s wings again, then nudged him to get up. Crowley began to extricate himself from Aziraphale’s lap with every evidence of reluctance, and the angel couldn’t help but smile.

“Get up and get face down in the bed, Raphael.”

With a gasp followed by a whimper Crowley scrambled to obey, wings flaring awkwardly as he threw himself down onto his bed. Aziraphale stroked his hands over Crowley’s skin, feeling the heat of it, the contrasting cool sleekness of his feathers, enjoying the touch of them as if he hadn’t just spent all that time grooming them. He could never get enough of Crowley’s wings. He could never get enough of _Crowley_. They’d known each other six thousand years, they’d loved and played together for something like two years now, and he suspected he would never get enough of that, even after six thousand years of what they had now.

Yet paradoxically if they didn’t have all this, if they just had what they’d had for so long; occasional meetings, dinners together here and there, years, decades or even centuries apart, he’d still be happy, still be delighted, still find himself pleased with every scrap of Crowley’s presence he could get.

It wouldn’t ever be _enough_, but nothing, no amount of it could possibly sate the hunger he had for the one he loved.

He smiled, thinking that he was about to try his best to do so all the same. A snap of his fingers vanished both his and Crowley’s remaining clothing, leaving them both nude. He could see that Crowley was shivering, feathers trembling ever so slightly. He looked back over his shoulder, his expression needy. “Master?”

Aziraphale felt the wonder of Crowley’s surrender all over again, and as he positioned himself atop Crowley he bent forward and kissed him, once between the wings, once on the back of his neck, the latter followed with a short, sharp nip, to remind Crowley of his dominance, as if the demon needed any reminding. Crowley was breathing hard, squirming beneath him, arching into every touch, his legs already spread eagerly. The tiniest flicker of power spread slickness where it was needed most, a brief plunge of fingers to circle and stretch, to ensure Crowley remembered to relax in the right way, and then Aziraphale lined himself up behind Crowley and sank in, savoring both the feel of the demon’s tight heat around him and the utterly shameless sound of Crowley’s moan.

“That’s a good boy,” murmured Aziraphale. “Take your master in, just like that. You feel so good, my pet. You _are_ so good.”

Crowley moaned again, pushing back, trying to take Aziraphale even deeper. “Master,” he repeated, breathless, the word also a moan, or perhaps a plea. Perhaps a prayer.

Aziraphale was a benevolent god—somewhere in the back of his mind a tiny fragment of him was shocked at the blasphemous thought and another fragment amazed that he had changed so much in a mere six thousand years that he wasn’t _more_ shocked—and so he answered the plea by moving his hips, beginning a slow rocking, in and out, a leisurely savoring. He made sure each stroke went as deep as it possibly could, sinking every single millimeter of himself into Crowley.

He thought, and his mind seemed to be more scattershot than usual, no doubt it was some aftershock of having been in Hell, that it would be wonderful if he really could sink every millimeter of himself into Crowley and not only his cock.

Then he thought that in a way he could.

His hips continued their slow, steady pace, his body awash with gradually building pleasure, but his mind groped about for the dark power at the back of it, for the conduit—the chain of binding—that tied the power, and Crowley with it, to him. He reeled that chain in, until it wasn’t so much a conduit as their essences pressed up against each other.

_May I?_ It was a silent, psychic murmur, the soft push of his being against Crowley’s, and it was instantly answered, _yes, of course, please,_ by Crowley reaching back, twining their souls together as they’d been twined when the binding had been forged.

They’d had time to get used to each other since then, though, to get used to the shine of grace and the pressure of black fire, so they wrapped themselves around each other without shock, without fear, their souls echoing what their bodies were still doing.

Picture, if you will, an infinite snake, eclipse-marked with every shade of red and black, sheened with rainbows, winding itself amid a landscape composed entirely of an infinite number of silver-bright wings, the feathers bearing peacock-eyes that were real seeing eyes. The eyes were of every color, but predominantly blue.

Picture a dark galaxy, where a black nebula like a midnight rainbow is lit and flashed to daytime colors by the light of a silver-gold star.

Picture a world-spanning ocean beneath a shattered moon, and a silver-sided fish cradled and nourished in its depths.

Picture, in Crowley’s bedroom, two cries in perfect unison as aetheric bliss washed through them both, and each knew and felt just what the other knew and felt; souls intertwined as bodies continue their age-old, primal joining.

Aziraphale’s hips found a faster rhythm—_the snake winds its way deeper, down amid the bases of the wings, nuzzling and caressing through warm feathers, the star sends out great plumes of plasma, solar flares washing over the nebula that embraces it, the fish swims faster, seeking, striving, currents sweeping swift around it_—and Crowley matched the motion perfectly, pushing back into every thrust, his body tensed and clenching around Aziraphale. 

It might have been mere seconds, the experience too much for either to hold back. It might have been an eternity, longer than the life of the universe itself. Time had no meaning, save for the time marked by rapid breaths, by thrusts ever faster, ever harder, until suddenly they were both there, on the brink.

_The wings spread wide, the serpent writhing within them, seen, known by a million wide eyes, touching, caressing, coiled about a million silver wings. The star goes nova, an explosion of light and bliss that sweeps over the nebula, setting it ablaze. The fish leaps, plunges back into the water, and the dark ocean is full of a million billion little fish all schooling, the shattered moonlight further shattered on their infinite scales._

Crowley was full of Aziraphale, filled with the sudden pulse of his seed, his own cum spilling beneath him, untouched, without command, simply because he could do nothing else but come with his master as their souls burned blissfully together.

Time trickled back into the universe, and with it an awareness of sweat-slicked skin cooling and congealing stickiness between them. With a long, contented sigh Aziraphale pulled from Crowley, who sighed too, though there was more of regret in it as he was no longer filled. Crowley pulled his wings in, making room for Aziraphale beside him on the bed. Aziraphale took the invitation and sprawled on his side, reaching for Crowley, who wiggled willingly into his arms. It took a moment to comfortably sort out the tangle of a dozen limbs between them, but eventually they ended up with one of Aziraphale’s wings spread over them both, and the blanket pulled up halfway over them as well. It was warm and comfortable, and with the afterglow of all they’d done ringing through both body and soul, Aziraphale felt that he was more content than he’d ever been.

A mere hour or two ago and he’d been knocking down the walls of Hell. Now he was somewhere even better than Heaven.

That thought brought a flicker of worry, and his brows drew together. If Heaven did come after them…

Crowley let out a sleepy murmur and settled his head a little bit further beneath Aziraphale’s chin, and the perhaps-no-longer-angel pushed that fear aside. Crowley would take care of him, and he would take care of Crowley, and whatever the future held, they would face it together. That was enough and more than enough for anyone, be he angel, demon, mortal man, or something else entirely.

“I love you,” he murmured into Crowley’s fire-dark hair.

“I love you too,” came the soft, trusting reply, and it was indeed enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing and posting this has been so rewarding. <3 Thank you all for your wonderful comments and your enthusiasm. There's a small epilogue that I'll have up later today, and then this one is done.
> 
> I have another Good Omens story that I'm putting up for my Patrons tomorrow, and that I'll start posting here soon, though it's only M rated and not especially kinky. (It's a Fallen Aziraphale story in which the BAMF tag will probably get used again.) But knowing me there will probably be other kink stories of one kind or another in the future, too.
> 
> You can always find me on [dreamwidth](https://bladespark.dreamwidth.org/), and I have links there to all my other internet presences.


	13. Chapter 13

Ose was under his desk, not at it.

He’d been under his desk for a while now. The explosions had stopped, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to come out. He wondered if a demon could quit. He’d always thought that wasn’t an option. Dagon was his immediate overseer, and he’d assumed she’d have him flayed for asking, and then put back to work the same as always.

Maybe the flaying wouldn’t be so bad, if he could get out of the being put back to work part?

No, this was all ridiculous. Nothing had actually happened. He hadn’t even been hurt. He was being absurd. He shifted, poked his head above the desk. He saw several other demons still under their desks. Saw some desks empty, the demons fled. Saw a few beginning to sort out their papers with trembling hands.

Slowly he settled back into his chair and regarded the huge pile of parchment in front of him, the largest pile on any desk here by far.

The first one had appeared without fanfare, and he’d taken note of the by-now familiar name and the unremarkable “11” on the page. About a minute later a second 11 had turned up, then a third, then a fourth. There was almost a rhythm to them, and then, to his surprise, there _was_ a rhythm, a distant booming that matched each repeated miracle.

Ose frowned. He’d never _heard_ anyone doing miracles before. What was going on?

The sound got louder, closer, miracles and booming noises perfectly synched, the booms very near now indeed.

Ose was just considering expending a tiny (twentieth order) miracle of his own to get the latest paper to add what Crowley was doing to the information already displayed there when the latest boom was not only near but _here_, an explosion that threw bits of mildewed hellish drywall into the room.

Demons shouted and scattered, several of them diving under their desks. Ose was one of those, but he couldn’t help peering over it, and saw the dark form, backed by impossibly shining wings, that stepped into the room. He knew that face. He’d seen it whenever Crowley had needed to file reports about his miracle expenditure in person. It was Crowley himself. But what Ose had never seen before was the bloody _halo_, a double ring of black and gold that swirled together at the edges, full of twisting currents like the clouds of Jupiter. Demons almost never had halos, and if they did they were black as jet.

Worse still was the golden glory that radiated from his hands. Ose’s eyes stung just trying to look at it, and he felt like his skin was reddening, acquiring a kind of cosmic sunburn in mere seconds.

“Oh, hey there, Ose.” Crowley waved cheerfully with one glory-streaming hand. “I’d say I’m sorry about the extra paperwork today, but really I’m not. Cheerio.” Then he lifted his hands and used the glory—glory! What was Crowley doing with glory?—to blow a hole in the far wall, also causing another hellish miracle report to pop up on Ose’s desk.

Crowley waved again and vanished through the hole, leaving the stunned clerks of Hell staring after him.

Ose dropped down under his desk and curled into a whimpering ball, as explosions continued off into the distance and miracle reports continued to drift down onto his desk like a very strange sort of snow. Said reports were somehow recording the use of _holy power_. Fucking bless! Fuck. They were literally blessed. What was he supposed to do? What if they really were holy and touching them killed him? What was he going to say to Dagon? What was he going to say to Beelzebub? They’d asked to be told if Crowley did anything else unusual. This certainly counted! But how in Satan’s name could he go up to the Prince of Hell and report that Crowley had become blessedly holy?

Beelzelbub _had_ to know already, Ose told himself. There was no way a Prince of Hell could miss the fact that there was a literally blessed demon rampaging through the halls of Hell, was there? They had to know! Ose couldn’t be expected to do anything. He was… He was busy, that was it. That was all. Much too busy. Yes, he had so much to file.

Eventually, once he crawled out from under his desk, he tentatively poked the miracle reports with one stained finger. They felt exactly like usual.

He shuddered. Had he been handling reports of actual miracles, the proper, Heavenly kind, all this time? Was that was that impossible third order miracle had been about? He looked at the untidy drift of reports in front of him. Slowly, his hands still shaking, feeling as if one of the papers might turn out to be holy after all at any moment, he gathered them up.

He rushed into the filing room, a twisted, folded space that was large enough for a cabinet for every demon who’d ever existed while also being scarcely bigger than a closet. Crowley’s cabinet was a massive thing, by far the largest, given it held six thousand years’ worth of reports on somebody who was fond of using his powers frivolously.

Ose had always meticulously filed those reports, each one in chronological order, but now he didn’t bother. He just wanted the horrible, holy scraps of parchment gone. So he didn’t walk through the twisting, multi-dimensional corridors in that particular way that all the filing demons learned, that would take him to Crowley’s cabinet, but instead pulled open the nearest drawer and stuffed the stack in.

Nobody ever checked. Nobody ever checked. Nobody would know.

Feeling better, he returned to his empty desk. There was a pop, and he tensed, but the paper that appeared held a different name at the top, and Ose relaxed. This one he filed properly.

But from that day forward, Crowley’s paperwork was always stuffed into whatever cabinet he saw first. Given the twisted space of the filing room, which cabinet was nearest the door changed constantly, so the misfiled papers were scattered far and wide.

And when Beelzebub eventually checked Crowley’s file, quite some time in the future, they would find that he had done no miracles at all since his escape from Hell. Puzzled, but convinced Crowley had been somehow rendered dead or harmless, or had become holy enough to be Heaven’s problem now, they decided to let sleeping demons lie, and let go of the impulse to have yet another go at bringing Hell’s wayward lamb home.

So both Heaven and Hell were ignorant of what Crowley and Aziraphale were up to, ignorant of what they’d become. That ignorance allowed the pair to live a long and happy eternity out together on Earth, just as they’d always wanted.

Eternity is a long time, and no doubt they will be drawn back into the doings of Above and Below eventually, but that’s another story, for another day. For now this story ends thus: with two beings, neither entirely celestial nor entirely infernal, curled up together in Crowley’s bed, silver wings folded together as they bask in the afterglow of their union of body and soul. Both of them are content and happy together as they could never be apart, and so everything is just as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! I have no more specific plans for this version of Crowley and Aziraphale, but I do have plenty more Good Omens stuff in progress, some of which should be ready to start posting soon.
> 
> Thank you again for all the kudos, and for all the kind comments as well.
> 
> If you'd like to see me talk about writing, my works in progress, other creative endeavors, and my life in general, check out [my Dreamwidth blog](https://bladespark.dreamwidth.org/) or my [twitter](https://twitter.com/bladespark).


End file.
